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by StormySkyLeaf



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Relationship Tags to Be Added - Freeform, Some Tragedy, Suspense, Swearing, Teleportation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-06
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-01-18 09:23:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 66,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1422970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormySkyLeaf/pseuds/StormySkyLeaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Did you ever have a moment in your life where everything was suddenly thrown in the middle of a hurricane? Where everything you knew changed in such a way that it would never be the same again? I did. My best friend, Vanessa Poirier, too." </p><p>The unexpected teleportation of two girls from Quebec in the Avengers' Tower changes irremediably many lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfic is an idea I got with one of my best friends (She-Wolf-By-Heart - you can find her on FF.net) about a year (if not two) ago. She's been urging me to post it for months, and here it is.
> 
> Okay. So this came from a crazy idea. What would happen if us two, crazy girls from Quebec, ended up meeting the Avengers. We started writing it for fun. I did most of the writing, but my friend's parts are hers. What happened is that the 'for fun' ended up in already over 35 000 words written, and I'm far from being done.
> 
> Now, mark my words. I didn't change our names because they are useful to some things in the story but that doesn't mean that you can think that everything is real. It's not. Some traits of our personalities are. Some things about us are real. But not everything. And whatever love story might pop up in the fanfic is the product of pure imagination, okay?
> 
> Now...
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not claim any ownership on the Avengers and everything that has to do with Marvel's universe. This is the pure product of imagination. The only thing that belong to me is my own character, and She-Wolf-By-Heart's character is hers.
> 
> Warnings: Possible graphic descriptions of violence. Lots of swearing (I'm serious, I'm not being polite) so if it disturbs you, don't read.
> 
> If you see mistakes (not that I have a tendency to do a lot of them), kindly notice me, please. I have no beta right now. If you're interested, feel free to propose yourself.
> 
> Phew... Long note. Okay, on with the prologue and chapter 1!
> 
> \- StormySkyLeaf

   **Prologue**

Did you ever have a moment in your life where everything was suddenly thrown in the middle of a hurricane? Where everything you knew changed in such a way that it would never be the same again?

 

I did. My best friend, Vanessa Poirier, too.

 

I am Alexanne. Alexanne De Bellefeuille. From Quebec. 24 years old, going on my 25 years old. Studying in languages. Fluent in English, French, Spanish and German. Learning Italian.

 

Single. Living in a small but cozy apartment.

 

My life suddenly went amiss on the 15th of February, when my best friend and I were at my apartment. A friendly meeting, exchanging news, spending some precious time together since our studies took a lot of place. I still remember the meal. I had made steak with flavoured rice and green beans.

 

It was after supper that things went wrong. I was showing Nessa some things on my laptop. Pictures, documents, projects… Anyway.

 

It happened in three successive ‘pops’.

 

Pop! A strange swirling blue thing appeared in my living room.

 

Pop! Vanessa and I were suddenly prisoners in the swirly blue thing.

 

Pop! We were in the middle of a large living room, the television making lots of noise behind us and six shocked faces gazing at us with obvious surprise.

 

And to make things even better, we knew who were in front of us.

 

A man with an arc reactor. A man wearing a white shirt with a red, white and blue shield. A red-headed woman with a gun in her hand. A sandy-haired man with startling pale eyes and a bow. A man whose eyes were hesitating between chocolate brown and radioactive green. And a strange tall man holding an even stranger hammer.

 

We were in the middle of Avengers Tower. In New York City, United States.

 

What. The. Fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For your information:
> 
> I (StormySkyLeaf) am Alexanne.
> 
> She-Wolf-By-Heart (on FF.net) is Vanessa.


	2. 1: Meetings and Trouble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is some French in this chapter. Translations are at the bottom.
> 
> Vanessa's monologue has been written by herself (She-Wolf-By-Heart). I only corrected it a little.
> 
> Enjoy!

**Chapter 1: Meetings and Trouble**

My first reaction was maybe the worst thing I ever said in my short life.

 

“What in goddamn heaven? What the hell was in the meat?” I breathed, too shocked to actually think properly.

 

Vanessa opened and closed her mouth like a gaping fish… before settling on pinching me!

 

“Yeow! The heck?” I bit out, rubbing my arm. She gave me a wide-eyed look and pinched herself lightly, wincing.

 

Time to calm down and make my smart brain work properly. I cleared my throat and offered the staring Avengers a weak smile. “Erm… Hello?” Clint Barton only tightened his hold on his bow and Natasha Romanoff aimed for me. I swallowed. “Could you, please, put your weapons down? They’re making me nervous and we’re certainly not a great menace. We don’t even have weapons of any kind.” I bit my lip nervously. The silence was becoming oppressing. The weapons pointed at us were menacing.

 

Focus, De Bellefeuille. Act like a mature adult.

 

“How did you…” Tony Stark waved his hands around. “Just pop there?”

 

I gave him a sheepish smirk. “That’s the thing. Something blue popped in my apartment. It popped us inside. And it popped us here.” My voice was trembling. I swallowed again. The menace of the weapons was wracking my nerves. “Put those things down, for God’s sake!” I cried out, the loud noise surprising them.

 

“Nope, it’s really the Avengers, right in front of me.” My best friend whispered. Oh, oh. I could feel the storm coming this way.

 

“That's it, I'm crazy! Fictional people just came to visit me directly from a movie! A goddamn movie!'' she said, her voice rising higher and higher as she spoke.

 

I face-palmed myself. Hard. The slap echoed in the room and Ness let out something between a strangled laugh and a pathetic whine.

 

“Oh. My. God. Did you really say that?” I asked, rubbing my forehead with two fingers. I let out a strangled chuckle and dragged a hand over my eyes. “If you’re crazy, then I’m surely not better.”

 

My brain was perfectly working, though. And I did not do drugs, so hallucinations was mostly out of the question.

 

“A movie?” Tony sounded so surprised. A nervous giggle escaped me. “You saw us in a movie?”

 

Vanessa and I exchanged a glance. “Not just one.” I muttered.

 

“Ironman 1 and 2, Captain America, The Hulk, The Incredible Hulk, Thor… Am I missing something?” Vanessa enumerated on her fingers.

 

I shook my head. “The movie itself: The Avengers.” Another nervous giggle escaped me. Okay. This was the strangest vivid dream I ever had. Could I wake up, now?

 

“Of course! I forgot the main one, The Avengers movie!” Ness exclaimed.

 

“You mean that all of us are fictional?” Tony said while the others finally lowered their weapons.

 

“So, we come from a movie, uh?” Bruce added, visibly not at ease with our affirmations.

 

''Yep! Or you're supposed to, but it’s really confusing right now.'' I said. In fact, confusing didn’t even came close to the degree of incomprehension I felt. “It’s real, isn’t it? You’re flesh and bones, not just a product of my boundless imagination.” I shook my head. “What are we doing in New York City, shit!? I have classes tomorrow!”

 

“Where do you come from?” Steve Rogers suddenly asked.

 

Was there ever a moment in your life when you suddenly had back an old crush on a character? Thing is, my crush was apparently on a real person, America’s golden boy.

 

“Qu… Quebec…” I answered, licking my lips with a quick swipe of tongue. Steven Grant Rogers was fucking gorgeous, really. All that slightly golden smooth skin covering rock hard manly muscles. Tall, strong, proud, a natural leader. With ocean blue eyes, the kind of blue to get lost into for days. I had some focus problems. So when I was able to hold someone’s gaze for a long while, I was immediately interested in this person.

 

I had a crush on Steve Rogers, also known as Captain America. Whom I had just met for real in the last… fifteen minutes?

 

Why did I have the feeling that I would end up heart-broken?

 

“Isn’t that like in Canada?” Natasha asked and I focussed back on the conversation.

 

“Yes it is. We live there or lived anyway” Nessa answered with some hesitation.

 

“Ok, first of all, I would like to know what exactly you know about us from these... movies.” Steve said, looking even more uncomfortable than Bruce.

 

Vanessa took a deep breath. Oh great, she was on for a long speech. I looked around the room and found a wall not too far.

 

“Well I know that you were that scrawny kid before the serum and a scientist or doctor of some kind chose you to experiment the serum and it worked. Then you were a circus freak, used to invite other people to join the army. After some time, you decided to really go and rescue some men that the army had decided it was not worth the fight to get them back, but you did. After that, you became Captain America and you went on missions, but lost your friend Bucky on one of them. Then you had this romance going on between with Peggy, but you never made it to this rendezvous and the dance because you had the crash with that ship in the ice ocean.” Vanessa said.

 

“For the Hulk, well, we know that you experimented to create a serum that was supposed to be like the one they gave to Captain America, but it didn’t turn right. You transformed into the Hulk and you were discovered and chased everywhere you went, even if you were being extra careful to not let your heartbeat out of control. There was this romance you had with the daughter of the military guy too.” she added. I subtly moved toward the wall. “The second movie just talks about a guy who injected himself with samples of your blood and became another kind of Hulk that you defeated.”

 

“Now, Iron Man. It began with you and Pepper Potts talking affairs, then lead to when you showed the Jericho Missile and then you were captured by guys that were enemies of yours and had a ton of your weapons in stock. They asked you to make them a Jericho Missile, but at first, you made the Arc Reactor and put it into your chest to stop living off a car battery. After that, you made the first version of the Iron Man suit and escaped from there. Then, you stopped making weapons, defeating your supposed-to-be-a-friend in the way and announced to the world that you were Iron Man.” Vanessa explained. “For the second movie, you said that you refused to cooperate with the army and sold the Iron Man suit. Only Rhodey would get one later. Then, there was this man that created robotic androids for war and targeted you after you defeated him at a race in France. You finally defeated him with the help of your friend Rhodey and something your father left you. At one of the ends of either movie, you kissed Pepper and that’s how you got together.”

 

“There’s Thor, who was banished on Earth without his powers nor his hammer because he had thought that fighting against the Jotuns was a good idea after they tried to steal something. That’s when Loki discovered that he wasn’t a true Asgardian and became so furious he made his father “fall asleep” and took over while Thor wasn’t here. On Earth, Thor soon discovered he really didn’t have his powers anymore when he failed to grab his hammer. With the help of Jane Foster and doctor Selvig, he learned a bit how our world works. When Loki sent a giant monster to kill him, he putted himself in front of Jane and the others, and that was when he regained his powers, defeating the monster. Then, he had to return to Asgard, but he promised Jane he would return. When he returned, Loki was waiting for him and they fought and broke the beautiful rainbow bridge that permitted them to travel trough worlds and Loki was lost in space as he let go of Thor’s hand.” Vanessa said. I cringed, fearing the reaction forebode by the growing tension.

 

“And then, there’s The Avengers. By far, my favourite movie ever. It shows how Loki appeared with the help of the Tesseract and how Clint and doctor Selvig were hypnotised by Loki with some kind of magic coming from his staff. After they escaped, we saw how Black Widow was “interrogating” some bad guys, we saw how she convinced Bruce of coming, we saw how Phil Coulson and Pepper Potts convinced Tony of coming and we saw how Fury convinced Captain America of coming. After that, Loki was seen in Russia so Black Widow and Captain America were sent there. They defeated him with the help of Iron Man, but then his brother appeared and talked to him. Loki let you take him after the fight, but only because he seemed to want to be in the helicarrier in the first place. After that, the Tesseract was located right beside the helicarrier when something exploded and everybody was on the run, trying to save the ship from sinking. Loki escaped; the war began, and then ended. And Thor and Loki were sent to Asgard and you guys were off into the wild, free of any sort of missions for a while since you saved the world.”

 

Vanessa finally finished her speech and I gave her a small tense smile from where I was leaning against the wall, playing with the first thing that had fallen under my hands. A book on something… Ah, a novel, actually. Not one I knew. I brought it a bit closer to my nose and vented myself with the pages. It still smelled new. I peered at the Avengers, who were staring at Vanessa, tense and exchanging long looks.

 

Nobody was talking. At all. I could hear the hum of the appliances, the slight buzzing of the electricity, the metallic sound of Thor playing with his hammer and the discreet ‘frchh’ sound of Clint playing with the feathered part of his arrows. If I concentrated, I could even hear the sounds of the traffic below, faint screams and gunshots, like in the movies…

 

“Gunshots?” I whispered aloud. Vanessa gave me a confused look. Natasha and Tony glared at me for breaking the silence. The TV had been shut. It didn’t come from it. Maybe I was imagining things…

 

Yet, even as I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes, I could still hear the noises, so faint they sounded as if they were coming from the back of my mind. Screams… Gunshots… Quite close. As if it was approaching the Tower…

 

Steve was frowning and Thor cocked his head. Of course, they had the most sensitive hearing. Maybe I wasn’t imagining things, finally.

 

“Gunshots?” I repeated in a tiny voice. Nessa closed her eyes and listened and I saw her eyebrows twitching.

 

“Sounds like…” she whispered back.

 

Suddenly, the Avengers were on their feet and moving in all directions. I pressed myself closer to the wall, not knowing what to do to stay out of the way or to be helpful.

 

It was impressing. In less than ten minutes, they were all geared up; suits, armours, weapons and everything. Before closing his faceplate, Tony gave us a glare.

 

“You stay here. You don’t move. Understood?”

 

“Yessir.” was my automatic answer, tone borderline on sarcasm. How dared he order us around? It was his tower but we were not subordinates!

 

He frowned. “JARVIS, keep an eye on them.” he ordered, before spinning on his heel and entering the elevator.

 

“I shall use all my eyes, sir.” An electronic voice answered. It sounded as if it was coming from nowhere and I jumped quite violently, even if I managed to muffle my surprised squeak.

 

Then, the silence swooped down on us again.

 

Vanessa and I exchanged a weary look. “What can we do?” she asked, visibly restless.

 

I shrugged uneasily. “Wait, I guess.” I bit my lip. “Wait for what? They’re going to ship us back to Quebec as soon as they can. Hell, if we are to meet Fury…” A smirk appeared on my lips. He would probably hate me the second my temper would get the better of me. “If we are to meet Fury, he will send us back _illico_ _presto_ , with a complimentary kick in the butt.”

 

My friend snorted and chuckled. “He would.”

 

The gunshots were now clearly audible. Some strange explosion-like sounds too. Mjolnir maybe?

 

JARVIS was silent but I knew he was watching us and helping Tony at the same time. After all, wasn’t he the top and the best of the interacting artificial intelligences?

 

With a sigh, I vented myself with the book again. I could have started reading, but strangely enough, I was not even interested. Even if the book looked good. Some thriller. I liked thrillers.

 

Fifteen minutes. I counted the seconds in my head. 900 seconds. Long. Boring.

 

Nessa and I exchanged a look and made for the window at the same time. We couldn’t stay put, arms crossed, doing nothing. Curiosity was getting the better of us. We had to see what was going on.

 

What we saw shocked us beyond speechless.

 

There were three guys. With jetpacks keeping them in the air. One was making a hole in the thick windows. One was holding something that the third was programming one-handedly, holding a flashlight in his other hand. I had seen enough things to recognize a big bomb when I saw one.

 

They wanted to put a bomb in the Avengers’ Tower.

 

Holy fucking shit!

 

“JARVIS!” The shrill noise Vanessa let out was unpleasing for the ears and I winced. The three guys saw us and the one who had been programming the bomb – a freaking bomb! – spoke into the headset he was wearing.

 

“Mister Stark has been warned and is coming with Lord Thor.” the AI answered in a calm voice. The perfect butler. He didn’t have the time to panic. I would have rolled my eyes if I hadn’t been shaking at the sight of a _bomb_. Also known as _‘highly dangerous explosive’_.

 

Goddamn!

 

The part of the window that had been cut – it was quite big, actually – fell down, exploding in dangerous sharp pieces of glass when it hit the street. The three guys entered and the hole-maker and the bomb-programmer jumped on us.

 

 

I cried out, loudly, as the bomb-programmer fell on me and I began to kick. I was using no precise method. Just kicking for the sake of hitting the danger trying to catch me and… trying to tie me up!

 

Vanessa was spitting curses mixed with short sentences such as “Don’t touch me!” “Leave me alone!” and “Stop it!”. I, for my part, was unable to say something. Words were blocking in my throat and I could only move like a snake; twisting, wriggling and trying to slither away.

 

Tough luck. Not only I did not manage to make him bulge, but he managed to wrap my wrists together with something that felt remarkably like Duct Tape. I raised my knee between his splayed legs, tried to bite him. My knee met something hard and my teeth didn’t close on any skin. Damn it!

 

“Calm or I shoot you!” the man hissed menacingly and I heard the click of a gun’s safety being pulled back. Dread settled in my stomach and I swallowed, dropping my legs back on the floor. I could only hope that Tony and Thor would arrive soon.

 

The man tied my feet together – definitely Duct Tape – before swinging me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. I let out an offended noise as his arm went around my hips to hold me in place and I wriggled slightly, testing the waters.

 

“Calm!”

 

I obeyed. What else could I do? Get killed? Not my priority.

 

“What are we going to do with them?” the hole-maker asked, balancing my friend over his own shoulder. Ness wasn’t kicking anymore and she gave me a freaked out look as the man went back to the window.

 

“Pourquoi…” she began in French.

 

“Shut up!” the third man hissed, playing nervously with a gun. I bit my lip, hard, trying to hold back the upcoming tears of panic. We were being kidnapped.

 

“We will use them as pressure means. We might get a pretty load of money.” the man who was holding me replied.

 

“Moyen de pression?!” I gasped, in French. Ness gave me a wide-eyed look.

 

The jetpacks suddenly came to life and we both let out a piercing scream when our kidnappers jumped through the hole and flew at such a speed that my ears popped painfully. A saw a spot of gold and red glinting in the night, city lights playing on metal, and I shouted: “Ironman!”

 

The man holding me grumbled a curse and _plunged_. The scream blocked in my throat. Vanessa’s, though, echoed in the sky.

 

We suddenly landed inside a truck, the back doors closing behind us with a slam. The kidnappers dropped us on the metal floor of the truck and one jumped behind the wheel.

 

“Que veulent-ils?” Vanessa asked softly. “Pourquoi veulent-ils nous utiliser comme moyen de pression? On connaît à peine les Avengers à part ce qu’on a vu d’eux dans les films!”

 

I shook my head, throat dry. “Je ne le sais pas… J’aimerais le savoir…”

 

One of the men – the hole-maker – was doing something. He turned toward us, features settled in a frown, holding… Holy fucking shit, a syringe!

 

A whimper escaped me. Were they about to poison us?

 

“You’re going to sleep for a while.” The hole-maker whispered. “Don’t worry.” He grabbed my arms and I began to struggle.

 

“No needle, no needle.” I babbled, trying to jerk away. The pain came, sudden and painful, the metal entering the muscle, cold and sharp. I let out a desperate sound and tears rolled down my cheeks as I struggled to calm down and breathe deeply. God, but I _hated_ needles!

 

“There. No need to make a fuss.” The hole-maker grumbled, taking another syringe for Vanessa.

 

I would have sent him to hell but a drowsy feeling was spreading through my veins and I was suddenly tired, so tired.

 

I blacked out.

* * *

_*French translations:_

_1\. "Pourquoi...?" **\-- >** "Why...?"_

_2\. "Moyen de pression?!" **\-- >** "Pressure means?!"_

_3\. "Que veulent-ils? P_ _ourquoi veulent-ils nous utiliser comme moyen de pression? On connaît à peine les Avengers à part ce qu'on a vu d'eux dans les films!" **\-- >** "What do they want? Why do they want to use us as pressure means? We know nothing of the Avengers apart from what we saw of them in the movies!"_

_4\. "Je ne le sais pas… J'aimerais le savoir…" **\-- >** "I don't know... I would like to know..."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you like it for now. I know it's a little abrupt for a first chapter, but trust me, I have a lot coming after that.
> 
> I will update regularly, on Saturdays.
> 
> As I said, if you spot mistakes, notify me and I will correct them. Thanks!
> 
> By the way, for those who wonder, the reason why Iron Man 3, Thor 2 and Captain America 2 aren't mentioned is because what happens in those movies comes a little in the way of the story. So we just preferred to act as if they did not exist at the moment. Thanks for your understanding!


	3. 2: Captive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here is the "What happens after the whole kidnapping thing"
> 
> In which some people are crazy maniacs with guns and you keep wondering where the hell I'm going with this chapter...
> 
> Somewhere, I swear.
> 
> But since I like a little suspense... The question will float around for a while.
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoy!

**Chapter 2: Captive**

I woke up with a pounding head and the taste of sand in my mouth. Sitting up slowly, I had to lean against a wall so that I wouldn't fall. I waited until the room stopped spinning to analyse my environment.

The room was quite small, about ten feet by twelve feet. There was a small toilet cabinet in a corner, two dusty mattresses on the ground, a small pile of hole-filled blankets at my feet and a worn wooden table with a pitcher, which I hoped was filled with water. The door had no handle inside and was made of some kind of metal. And a huge mirror covered one of the walls… unless the mirror was the wall itself.

I dragged myself on my feet and walked slowly toward the small table, feeling the world spin around me.

The pitcher was filled with water, thankfully. I drank about half of the warm water and putted the rest aside for Vanessa; her throat probably wouldn't be better once she woke up.

Vanessa.

I went back to my still-drugged friend's side and sat beside her, pulling one of the 'blankets' over her. She looked peaceful beside the occasional shiver that caused her to frown in her sleep, her slightly freckled nose wrinkling. Her skin was pale – a bit darker than mine, though – with a hint of pink marring her cheeks, and long chestnut-blond hair curling slightly around her face. What was bothering me, though, were the pale eyelids still covering her warm brown eyes. I seriously hoped that she would wake up soon.

Crossing my arms over my chest, I looked at my own reflection. Dark brown hair framed my face, the pale skin dotted here and there with freckles. Alert grey-blue eyes – more gray than blue, in this small cell – were staring back at me with a hint of stress and tiredness shining in their depths. I shook my head and pushed a strand of hair from my face, noticing the pink stripes on my wrists where the Duct Tape had been. I touched one with my fingertip; they were quite sensitive…

A sudden click coming from the door made me jump and I tried to do some quick moves. But I was still too groggy to move with my usual speed and just ended up making the room spin around me. When the colours cleared, I saw a man closing the door after exchanging some words with whoever was near.

He looked surprised when he saw me. "Ah, you are awake."

I snorted. "I don't sleep well on cold stony floors…" I answered shortly, irritated.

The man frowned. "Too bad. This is your… apartment for the time you will spend here." His eyes fell on Vanessa and he smiled. The kind of smile that sent shivers dancing down my back. "Well, well. What have we gotten here? Such a pretty Sleeping Beauty."

"You don't approach her." I hissed. "You leave her the fuck alone or I swear to God that I'll kill you, even if I end up dead in the process."

The man chuckled darkly but I closed my hands into fists and stood on shaky legs. "Protective, aren't you? Sleeping Beauty has a guard dog." He shook his head, visibly amused, and I felt my patience slip away. He took a step toward us and I raised my fists in a silent challenge.

"You stay away from my friend." I growled. Without looking back, I nudged her shoulder with my right foot.  _Please, Ness, wake up!_

The man's smirk deepened. "Calm down, little tiger. I won't hurt your friend. You're only here for business."

"Business? How the hell do two girls from Quebec have to do with your business?" I asked, shaking with nerves. "Why the hell did you kidnap us in the first place? What do you want from us?"

"Yeah… What… What do you want from us?" Vanessa asked in a weak voice, slowly pushing herself up on her elbows. I let out a relieved sigh.

"From you?" The man laughed. "From you, nothing. From the Avengers…" The smile became dangerous.

I swallowed. Would the Avengers pay their price for  _us_? We had just met a few hours ago –  _if_  it was only a few hours ago and not more – and they did not trust us, visibly.

The man suddenly produced a gun from God knows where and pulled the safety back, saying with a smile: "It is, sadly for you, loaded. I would suggest you to follow me calmly, without making a fuss."

"Where…" I began.

He cut me. "Don't worry, little tiger. Just in a special room to make a special video which we will then send to New York." He showed us the door with the muzzle of the gun. "Go and knock three times. The doorkeeper will open. Then, you will follow him calmly. One false step and I might accidentally touch the trigger…"

This guy was a… a crazy… a maniac! We both obeyed, though. The menace of the gun was a silent reminder of our helplessness.

Ness knocked three times and the door was opened. The guy outside wore an army rifle and had a long scar marring his left cheek, missing his left eye by less than an inch.

We walked through a maze of corridors, turning left, then right, then left again. I soon lost my usually good sense of direction. The two men forced us into a room where a man and a woman were discussing softly. The woman was holding a camera. When we entered, they stopped conversing and looked at us.

"Do you really think that they will be enough to convince the Avengers to bow to our demands?" the woman asked, analysing us with critical ice blue eyes. Her hair was long, sandy blond, curling slightly at the tips. She wore a red lipstick and a blouse that putted her impressive cleavage in evidence. I held back a sneer.

The man analysed us with dark greyish brown eyes and pulled a gun from the middle of nowhere. "The Avengers won't let two innocents die if they can prevent it." he said calmly, playing with the gun's safety. Our cell's doorkeeper exited the room on a small nod from the man who definitely looked like the boss, leaving Ness and I alone with Maniac, Blondie and him.

"Your names?" the Boss asked.

"What if we don't answer?" I asked back, biting my tongue too late. Oh, shit…

The Boss shrugged. "You can give us false names if you please. We're going to use them in the video, that is all."

I bit my lip, hard. "Lex." I finally hissed.

Nessa shook her head and gave him one of her death glares. "Ness." she hissed.

The Boss nodded. "Very well. Sit." He pointed two chairs with his gun. "No harm will come to you if you follow the orders and are polite. Follow our instructions carefully once the camera is on; it would be a shame to have to hurt you…"

We obeyed; what else could we do?

If I thought the situation was crazy enough, I got a nasty surprise in the form of the message we were supposed to say together, at the same time.

"Hello, the Avengers. We really need your help. They are holding us captive and they'll kill us soon if you don't do as they say. You have to take the Teleportation Device from S.H.I.E.L.D. and bring it to them. Soon you will have another message. In it will be the location where you need to place the bag."

Seriously?

We did it as he said – again, the gun was  _really_  convincing – and my lip was bleeding by the time Maniac brought us back to our cell.

"Now, now, little tiger. Don't bite your own lip so harshly for nothing." Maniac said teasingly before closing the door behind him.

I crashed down on a mattress, cringing when it freed a cloud of dust.

"I can't fucking believe it." I whispered. "The Avengers barely know us. Why would they do something such as shipping something to those… bastards… behind S.H.I.E.L.D.'s back?" I voiced my fear aloud and Vanessa's eyes darkened. She did not answer me and I plunged into my swirl of thoughts, blocking every outside sensation.

I don't know how much time we spent lost in our own worlds, sprawled on our thin mattresses. We both kind of came back to life when the door opened, Maniac entering with two trays of food.

"Kitty, kitty. Food is served!" he called teasingly. I gave him the finger before I could think about it. Thankfully, he only chuckled. "The princess' and her cat's dinner is served." he said, before exiting the room.

"Princess?" Vanessa repeated, disbelief colouring her voice.

"He called you Sleeping Beauty while you were still unconscious." I muttered, picking up a bowl, which looked as if it was filled with thick soup… or wet bread. "That guy's crazy anyway."

"Princess? I don't want him to call me that! That's something I would want my boyfriend to call me. Not some jerk that I don't even know! Worse, someone who kidnapped me!" Vanessa said angrily. The look in her eyes almost made me pity the guy. Almost.

I sighed and nodded. "He calls me 'little tiger'. It's cute… but it's a pet name. I don't want that… guy," I spitted the word, "to give me pet names. If I ever have a boyfriend, it'll be okay, though." I added. "If ever."

We ate our bread soup in silence, focussed on swallowing the "food" as fast as possible. The taste was disgusting!

We fell back on our mattresses and just lost ourselves in our own thoughts again, sometimes falling asleep and waking up only an hour or two later.

We spent a few days – they hadn't taken my watch, so I knew the date – in the cell. Maniac brought us food three times a day, lingering each time a bit longer than the previous. He kept flirting – badly – with my best friend, whose answering glares could have melted ice.

And, as his visits became longer, I found myself keeping an eye on the gun he always had at his waist more often. Soon, it became an obsession. I had to have that gun. Take it and break free. Those small "quarters" were slowly driving me crazy.

On our fourth day spent in the cell, Maniac came in with his gun but no food. It was not time for our breakfast anyway and I understood there was something else going on.

"Je crois qu'ils veulent que nous envoyons un autre message.*" I muttered in French.

Vanessa crossed her arms over her chest. She visibly wasn't warm to the idea.

"A good morning to you too, princess!" Maniac said joyously. He waved his gun around and I followed the movement with my eyes, body tense and at the ready. Now. I had to get that gun now. Knock three times on the door and kill the rifleman. Steal his rifle and try to find our way out. Now, before they killed us because the Avengers probably wouldn't give them the "teleportation device", whatever it really was.

"We are going to the conference room, this morning! Follow…" His sentence was cut in half when I lunged for the gun. He fell on his back with a shout and we began to roll around, him trying to keep his gun, and I trying to pry it from his hands. The noise we made probably worried the doorkeeper; he opened the door and peered inside… only to have Vanessa jumping at his throat.

It was short. As my hands finally closed on the gun, I felt a sudden pain in my shoulder, making me cry out and release my grip on the weapon. I rolled off Maniac, clutching my bleeding shoulder and saw him coldly putting back the long knife inside his shirt. "That was a bad idea, little tiger." he said softly, pulling me up by the hair.

The rifleman had easily overpowered my friend, who was now swung over his shoulder, shaking her head slowly. I saw a trickle of blood going down her temple and I bit down a cry of rage. Why, goddamn, why were they doing this?

"Walk." Maniac hissed in my ear. "One falter and I kill you, am I clear?"

I nodded, swallowing back tears.

My vision was so blurred while we walked that the maze of corridors was even less recognizable than the first time. I was still clutching my shoulder in a painful grip, trying to stop the bleeding. The sleeve of my blouse was already crimson and my fingers were wet with the warm blood seeping through the cotton.

Maniac pushed us into the room and closed the door behind us after the rifleman had dropped my dizzy friend on a chair. The Boss was there and so was Blondie. This time, she wasn't holding a camera, but a laptop, which had probably cost over eight hundred dollars from the looks of it.

"What happened?" the Boss asked, upon seeing the state in which Vanessa and I were.

"They tried to take some weapons without my permission." Maniac answered.

The Boss frowned. "Go and get some bandages." he ordered Maniac, who nodded and exited the room without voicing any protest, even if the dark look he threw me probably meant that he wasn't too eager with the idea of bandaging our wounds.

Blondie shook her head. "How are we going to explain their poor state to the Avengers?" she muttered, giving us a glare. I gave her the finger. I was too much in pain already to care about the consequences.

"So, what are we gonna say to the 'vengers this time?" Ness asked, eyes somewhat glazed over.

"You're going to tell them where exactly they have to put the bag containing the Teleportation Device so that we can retrieve it safely." Blondie answered, putting down the laptop in front of us. Ah. A webcam

The Boss putted a mask on. "I shall speak to them if they do not have the Device." he said and I cringed.

Maniac came back in the room with bandages, which he dropped on the table before heading for the darkest corner of the room.

Ness pressed one to the side of her head and sighed. I was awkwardly rolling one around my shoulder when the screen suddenly lit up. Wait, we were going to speak  _directly_  to them?

Apparently, yes, for Tony Stark's face suddenly materialized on the screen. His eyes widened when he saw us. We probably were a poor sight to behold. Vanessa's face had a trickle of blood going down her left cheek and the beginning of a bruise near her left eye. Her hair was a dirty mess of knots and she had dark shadows under her eyes. I wasn't much better. Wrapping an already reddish bandage around my shoulder, dark shadows under my eyes, my dark hair oily and looking like a crow's nest.

"What happened?" Tony breathed softly.

I gave him something between a small smile and a grimace in answer. "We did something stupid. Do you have the Teleportation Device?" I asked softly, lowering my eyes to the keyboard. How could I look at him when I was talking for  _them_?

I raised my head a tiny bit and saw Tony frown. "We don't. S.H.I.E.L.D. won't even let us approach it. Wish them luck; they won't get it easily." he said, crossing his arms over his chest, blocking the blue glow of the Arc Reactor.

I heard Maniac move in his corner and swallowed a noise of fear. Panic was rising into me. They would kill us if they didn't get that thing!

The Boss approached the table. "Mister Stark." he said, lowering himself so that the webcam could see his mask-covered face. "It would be a shame to have to kill two innocent people for the sake of an experimental device, don't you think?" He closed his hand in a vice-like grip on my wounded shoulder and I barely muffled a wail.

Vanessa winced when the Boss gripped the back of her neck fiercely. Tony's eyes widened as he heard what the Boss said in a low voice: "I swear that we'll get it somehow."

He released Nessa's neck and my shoulder and I choked on another noise of pain, cursing softly under my breath. My shoulder was  _pain_  and I just lost it.

"Bastard." I hissed. "Fucking bastard!" That one was a shout. I stood abruptly and felt Vaness' hand  _squeezing_  my arm painfully.

"Lex, calm down, please!" she whispered.

The Boss gave me a cold look. "Name-calling doesn't bother me. I've been called bastard before."

"Do I look like a bill, damn it?! We're humans, not money. You can't do whatever you want with us, asshole!" I took a deep breath, fighting the instinct encouraging me to just jump at his throat and  _strangle_  him. "Leave us the fuck alone! Didn't you hear him? You won't get that thing! Not through the Avengers! Not through us!" My nails were digging in my palms and something wet was dripping between my fingers. A subtle pain was coming from my clenched hands, a nagging in the back of my mind. I opened my shaky fists and stared at the scarlet moon crescents bleeding in my palms.

I dropped back down on the chair, dragging a hand through my dark hair, thinking too late about the blood. Anyway. My hair was already a mess. It would take me at least an hour to clean it if we ever got out of here alive.

Alive… How long did we still have to live?

I felt something growing in my chest, painful. A shiver shook me and I bit my already bleeding palm,  _hard_ , trying to hold back the upcoming tsunami of emotions.

 _Control,_ damn it!  _Control_!

Tony was looking worryingly at me and I saw him mouthing the words " _You're alright?_ " I shook my head in answer, teeth digging deeper in my stinging palm. The Boss was talking in a low voice with Blondie and Maniac in a corner.

Vanessa pulled my hand away, hissing: "Arrête ça!*" She pulled my head against her shoulder and I just brought my other hand to my mouth, teeth closing on my wrist. Pain, sharp and bright. It helped me to focus. When I raised my eyes back to the computer, instead of meeting brown eyes, I met ocean blues.

Steve shook his head upon seeing the state in which we were and the worried look in his eyes darkened to an angry one.

"Save us… Please…" I begged softly, a whisper, throat raw from holding back screams, tears stinging the corner of my eyes.

"Tony is tracing the computer signal." Natasha said, suddenly appearing in front of the webcam. I felt Nessa nod vigorously before Maniac came to us and forced us to stand. "We're going back to your apartment, girls!"

Just before we exited the room, I saw the Boss, still masked, sitting in front of the computer.

* * *

_*French Translations:_

_1\. "Je crois qu'ils veulent que nous envoyons un autre message." - "I think they want us to send another message."_

_2\. "Arrête ça!" - "Stop that!"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...
> 
> Comments are always welcome.
> 
> Mistakes are mine. If you spot some, as said previously, let me know.
> 
> See you next Saturday!


	4. 3: Rescued

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here is chapter 3!
> 
> In which pain becomes unnerving and writing in the first person sometimes makes you want to bang your head on walls.
> 
> "Warnings" for stubbornness, emotional distress and injuries.
> 
> Enjoy and thanks for reading!

**Chapter 3: Rescued**

I tugged absentmindedly at the bandages wrapped around my left hand and Ness swatted my fingers away. "Stop that!" she growled.

I obeyed and tiredly curled into a small ball on my mattress. Four days, lying in the dirt, barely eating enough and with nobody coming to clean up a little bit. I felt sticky, dirty and our wounds were not healing fast. My hands kept itching and my shoulder was swollen and sensitive to the touch. I knew from the worried dark look in Vanessa's eyes that Maniac's weapon hadn't been clean; my shoulder was infected.

As for Vanessa, she was often whining softly about headaches, but the wound at her temple was healing. The bruises on her side were slowly paling to yellow and I still felt a deep rage toward both Maniac – that asshole now leaved his gun outside the room – and the doorkeeper.

Days passed, slowly, painfully. I was tired and preferred to lie on my uninjured side, tracing meaningless patterns in the dirt before softly blowing on them and starting over again. Ness had had a rage crisis, screaming and cursing and just letting out everything. She was now mostly silent, doing the same thing as I did. We sometimes shared long looks, just drowning silently in each other's eyes, begging for the same thing.

_Help_.

The sound of the door unlocking roused me from an uneasy sleep and I forced myself up, swallowing a wave of nausea.

"Hello Princess! I bring your food for today!" Maniac said, grinning. "Hello little tiger, I have your food too." he added with a frightening grin.

"Don't call us that, you creep!" Vanessa replied angrily, talking to him for the first time since our last trip to the conference room.

Maniac only smiled indulgently. "Aw, princess, you hurt my feelings!" he mocked. His grin grew when he caught sight of my shivering silhouette. "Well, well, little tiger… Feeling under the weather?" he asked.

"Fuck off, asshole." I hissed through chattering teeth. Why was the cell so cold all of the sudden? I rubbed my arms and gave him a glare as he exited the tiny room, laughing loudly.

Vanessa looked pissed and she seemed to hesitate between either throwing the "food" at the wall or eating it. With a sigh, she took the two plates and set one down in front of me. "Let's eat." she muttered.

I fell back down on my side, hit by a new wave of nausea. "Not hungry." I answered, shivering madly.

Definitely looking worried, Ness gently pressed her hand on my forehead, eyes widening in shock. Her hand was cool but felt great on my sweaty skin. "Oh, shit…" she whispered.

"Fever?" I asked, grimacing when she nodded. "So it's either we get saved, we try to escape and get killed or we die in that small cell." I shook my head, biting my lip when the colours blurred and spun. My head, my poor head… "That's not the future I had in mind…" I whispered.

Vaness stood, gritting her teeth, and went to the pitcher of warm water. That's when I noticed the dark red stain darkening the bottom of her back. "You're wounded!" I exclaimed feebly but with a spark of my usual fire, my throat raw and my voice thin. "And you did not tell me!"

"Look, I'm sorry, but I didn't want to worry you and it's not as if it was infected. But your shoulder is, so stop worrying over me and take care of yourself. Here, I got water. Drink some." she said, giving me the water.

I drank only part of it; rationing water was necessary since they only gave us one pitcher a day.

I distantly heard Vanessa knocking three times on the door but my mind began to wander and I missed the exchange, only focussing on the present moment when my friend kneeled before me.

"They're bringing medication. We'll treat your shoulder and find a way to escape this hell." she told me. I nodded weakly and closed my eyes. I was so tired… My shoulder was a constant ache in the back of my mind.

Five minutes passed, then ten, fifteen… I lost count, my mind starting to wander again. I thought about colours. Grey and blue, with a touch a silver and a tiny flicker of leaf green. That's how I liked to describe my eyes. But they were now glassy as I looked at myself in the mirror.  _Dark, burning and shining… Fever… I have a fever… Feverish skin, sweat… Sweet… The sweet taste of something… I want chocolate…_

Vaness was growing restless, pacing around the cell and shooting glances at the door.

The sudden thunder of a rifle gun made us jump and I rolled on my back in surprise, whimpering when a lick of  _fire_  went down my shoulder and ended somewhere in the middle of my back.

What the fuck was happening?

I could hear something that sounded like Maniac, outside the cell. "Come on! We need to use them as shields. They won't shoot them…" He was cut abruptly by a sudden noise, which I did not recognize.

Vanessa and I exchanged a look, the flicker of hope I felt shining in her brown eyes. Had the Avengers came for us?

The door of the cell opened and Ness spun on her heels, visibly ready to fight if she needed too. I tried to stand too, help her, watch her already wounded back. But no sooner was I on my feet that everything began to spin around me at a breathtakingly speed.

"Whoa!" The noise escaped me as I lost feet, falling. I was ready for the pain of the hard floor… Instead, I was caught by a pair of strong arms and cradled against a warm chest. I blinked at the white star stretched in front of my nose and let out a weak chuckle, before a harsh cough shook my already trembling body.

"I got her!" I knew that voice, did I not? But the name was escaping me.

I heard Vanessa wail in pain and I wriggled. She needed help! But the arms holding me tightened and wriggling fast became tiring.

"Calm down!" I suddenly could see Vaness, held up by something red and gold, which was shooting blue balls of energy here and there. She looked frightened but it became anger when her eyes fell on me.

I raised a fingertip to trace the white star – or try to, since everything was blurry. I was so tired and still in pain and whoever was holding me was warm and comforting and was taking me away from the tiny cell.

I gave that person my complete trust here and then and blissfully let the tiredness wash over me.

*o*O*o*O*o*

I woke up suddenly, roused from my sleep by  _fire_  in my shoulder. I sat up with a whimper… and almost threw up. I flopped back down. I was hot, too hot. Water… I needed water.  _Pain_ … Fire… It hurt.

A cool washcloth was pressed on my forehead and I blinked, cracking my eyes open. Pain… My eyes… Light… Too bright… I closed them tight.

"Can you lower the lights?" someone said. Feminine voice… I knew that voice…

"Nessa…" I croaked out. "Hot…"

She shushed me. I tried to open my eyes again.

I was in some kind of bright room – hospital maybe – in a bed. Vanessa was sitting beside me, her eyes shining with worry and a bandage tightly rolled around her stomach and lower back. On my other side, there was a man. Brown hair, brown eyes with flickers of… green? I knew his name… B… B something… Like a flag… A green flag… Banner!

"You're Bruce Banner." I said softly. "You're a doctor."

He nodded. "I am."

"Then why the hell does it still hurt?" I asked. "Why am I so hot!?" I growled, pushing away the blanket covering me. The cool air of the room raised goosebumps on my skin and I sighed.

Nessa pulled the blanket back up. "Lex. You've got no shirt on." she told me.

That's when I noticed that I was indeed bare from the waist up if I didn't count the sweat-drenched bandage sticking to my shoulder. But strangely, the thought of being half-nude in front of Bruce and Vanessa did not seem to bother me as much as it should have.

A sudden sting in my arm and I let out a hiss of displeasure at the new pain. "What was that for?" I asked, sticking a bare foot out of the bed in an attempt to cool myself.

"Morphine." Bruce answered. "I have to change your bandage." he added.

I sat up slowly, the blanket pooling on my lap, as Bruce putted gloves on. He turned to me and nodded. "You're able to hold yourself up?" he asked. I nodded slowly; my head felt heavy all of the sudden. "Raise your arm a bit." he ordered.

I obeyed, briefly fearing the pain. But none came. It was as if my brain was disconnected from my nerves. Everything was fuzzy; I felt as if I was kind of floating…

Everything was kind of a blur after that. Bruce bandaged my shoulder, made me to swallow pills for my fever and forced me to lie down before changing Ness' bandage. We were stuck in hospital beds… I  _hated_  hospitals.

I learned that we were in the Healing Wing of the Helicarrier, though, not a hospital, which was a bit comforting.

A full day went by before I was able to do more than sit up for a short while. My fever finally abated and my body stopped having highs and downs. This was great since I had more than enough of my inconstant shivering.

On the second day, I got out of the bed and putted on some real clothes; comfortable jeans and a black sweater with gold wings in the back and the words "Angel of my Love" in golden letters written over a heart of the same color on the front. I silently thanked whoever had left clothes that fitted. Vanessa had been excused the day before and, even if she spent a lot of time with me, she wasn't there right now and I was  _bored_. In fact, with my still bandaged shoulder, I should stay in bed like a good girl but seriously… I was sick of it.

I tiptoed out of the healing wing, pulling my hood on and sticking as much as possible to the walls. I finally reached an elevator and hesitated. Where the hell was I going? Where was Vaness, now? How could I find her?

"Are you lost, little one?" A sudden booming voice made me almost jump out of my skin. I let a shriek and spun wildly on my heel.

Thor, God of Thunder, gave me an apologetic look. "I am truly sorry. I did not want to frighten you so, young one."

I breathed deeply to calm my pounding heart. "Oh my God, you surprised me." I huffed. My God indeed. I mentally slapped myself.

The god cocked his head and observed me with those alien blue eyes of his. "Aren't you the Daughter of the Lake's friend?"

Daughter of the Lake? What the heck? My mouth was hanging open in surprise. I hastily closed it, my teeth snapping together. "What? Who?"

Thor hesitated. "Your blond friend, the young lady whom the Man of Iron calls Loch Ness, I believe." he said.

I laughed. I couldn't help myself. Ness, oh my God, Ness! Tony Stark dared to call her like the lake in Scotland? Oh God! I chocked on my saliva and coughed.

"Are you well?" Thor asked me. "Maybe you should go to the Midgardian Healers."

I gave him a dark look. Hell, no! I had just gotten out of the Healing Wing, I wasn't going back, thank you!

I shook my head, dark hair flying around and noticed that it was clean. Okay… Somebody had washed my hair… Well, I wasn't going to whine about that part. The smell of plain soap was far better than the smell of oil and blood.

I focussed back on the mountain of muscles in front of me. "Do you know where my friend is… erm… my Lord?" I asked politely. How was I supposed to call him? Almighty Thor? God of Thunder?

He smiled; a huge happy show of white teeth. "Last time I did see her, she was having a heated argument with the Man of Iron and the Hawk Man on nicknames. I shall guide you to her if you desire so, little one."

I nodded, swallowing back a grimace. I know I wasn't tall but still hated to be called 'small' to my face. "I would be most grateful if you could do so." I answered, thanking the skies for my obsessive reading. I had quite a large vocabulary.

Thor's smile grew larger – how was it even possible – and he gently took my small hand in his. "Follow me." But he didn't start walking. Instead, he frowned and looked at me. "How are you called, young Midgardian?" he asked.

"Alexanne. De Bellefeuille." I answered. He cocked his head to the left and his smile came back. "You could translate De Bellefeuille by… erm… Prettyleaf or Greenleaf, I guess, in English." I added.

"I shall call you so, Daughter of the Leaves." Thor exclaimed and I discreetly winced at the booming noise. As boisterous and loud as his element, wasn't he?

"Actually, Alexanne would be perfectly alright!" I said urgently, forced to break into a small jog to keep up with Thor's long strides. He visibly didn't hear me, pulling me along, my hand still imprisoned in his.

I sighed and let myself be pulled – why did I feel like a dog on a leash? – distractedly looking around and committing some hallways and an elevator or two to my memory.

We passed in front of two large doors and Thor abruptly stopped. I ran into his back and let out something between a small cry of surprise and a grunt of pain. Thor did not seem to hear me, only giving me a slightly puzzled look when I rubbed my nose gently with my free hand.

"What's going on?" I muttered.

Thor heard me, this time. "I want to show you around." he said. "This is what the Man of Iron did with your friend." He nodded. "This is the gym. I believe there are some of my shield mates practicing. Come. I shall do the presentations." I shook my head but it was of no use. Thor easily pulled me inside and I was too proud to actually let him  _drag_  me.

I shook my head hard under the hood. It made me slightly dizzy, but it also brought some dark strands over my face, partially hiding it. With my free hand, I pulled the hood lower. I just wanted to find Vaness and find a way to go back home. I still was under the stress of the whole kidnapping thing and my difficulties to sleep normally – thank my shoulder and the nightmares for that – did not make me very friendly.

There were three Avengers in the gym. Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton were sparring against Steve Rogers. And I looked from under my hood, fascinated. It was kind of a dance; the three of them moved gracefully, never losing their balance and I felt a flicker on envy in my gut at the strength and control I could see.

Thor, surprisingly, waited patiently for them to notice us. When they did so, I subtly moved behind Thor… and he pulled me in front of him,  _finally_  releasing my arm.

"Friends!" he exclaimed. "This is Alexanne, Daughter of the Leaves." Could I die or disappear, please?

Clint snorted. "I see dark hair and a hood. Surely she has a face?" He crossed his arms over his chest and a feeling of dread mixed with my silent happy squeals of fangirl. I raised a shaking head to the dark hood and pulled it back, before pushing the strands of hair away from my burning face.

Whatever I was ready for was not Clint and Natasha's somewhat respectful looks and Steve's slightly worried one.

"Aren't you supposed to still be in the Healing Wing?" the captain asked me and I could not hold back a grimace.

"I am alright." I lied smoothly. The lie was contradicted by a loud yelp when Thor's hand fell like a rock on my wounded shoulder. I stiffened in pained shock before jerking away from the God of Thunder and protectively pressing a gentle hand over my throbbing shoulder. "That one hurt!" I hissed angrily through gritted teeth.

"And I'm not going back!" I growled when Steve took a step toward me. "No way. I'm not moving my butt from here unless I decided so. This is far more interesting than the same four boring walls."

"Won't Loch Ness be looking for you?" Clint asked and I glared.

"I doubt she likes that nickname so I would politely ask you to stop calling her so." I said somewhat icily, annoyance making my voice waver a bit.

The archer raised his hands defensively. "Alright, tiger. Don't…" He did not finish his sentence, giving me a perplexed look when I flinched – quite violently – at the nickname and clutched at my sensitive shoulder.

"Where is Vanessa?" I asked, trying to hide my reaction and fixing a blank spot on the floor.

"Alexanne De Bellefeuille, what the fuck do you think you're doing here!?" came a shout. Well, speaking of the wolf…

I turned on my heel, releasing my shoulder and plastering a fake happy smile on my face at the sight of my angry best friend coming toward me. "Taking a small walk around? I feel well. Not drowsy, not in pain," I saw Steve frowning and Natasha arching an eyebrow, "and not tired at all!" I said in a falsely cheerful voice. Vanessa crossed her arms over her chest and gave me a glare, arching her eyebrows, the look on her face visibly meaning: "Seriously? You think I will believe that?"

The smile faded away and I twitched, crossing my own arms. "I am well." I growled.

"You clearly are not. Don't lie to me, Alexanne! You should be at the Hospital Wing, not wandering everywhere on the ship!" Vanessa growled back, clearly frustrated.

"Okay, mommy!" I replied, irritated and not resisting the little voice begging me to make fun of her protectiveness. Somewhat, the thought was both soothing and unnerving.

"I am pleased to see you, Daughter of the Lake. Your friend here was looking for you." A hiss escaped me when his hand hit me square between my shoulder blades. I almost fell forward but Thor's suddenly gentle hands held me up. "Forgive me, I did not want to make you lose feet." he said. "Have I harmed you?"

"Nah, it's alright. There's no blood, I'm okay." I said in a rush, shrugging the god's hands off and taking some distance. "See? I'm alright."

Touching… These days, when I was conscious, touching made me react quite badly. I was a bit of a masochist but pain like the one coming back in my shoulder – the morphine had definitely worn off – was not something I enjoyed. The memory of pain was sometimes even worse than the pain itself.

Clint was looking at me curiously and I suddenly felt like something on display. "What?" I bit out, more aggressively than I meant to. Vanessa's deepening frown made me cringe inwardly.

"Tiger. Definitely like a tiger." I flinched two times. It was almost instinctive; I could barely hold it back. All of this because of Maniac's words and the pain he had brought to me… I seriously hoped that the bastard was dead. A sudden rage rose in me and I shot a brief look around the small gymnasium. I needed something to hit.

Punching bag.

I had forgotten the pain until I swung my fist into the bag. Thankfully, I did not use my wounded arm. But the comeback of the hit reverberated through the top of my back and my two shoulders. A surprised – and pained – gasp escaped me before I could hold it back.

And a scream ripped itself from my throat when Vanessa angrily closed a hand around my bicep. I spun wildly on my heel, lifting a leg… and catching my best friend in the knees! She released me with a surprised huff, falling backward. I caught her hand, trying to hold her up but her weight brought us both to the floor. The shock made us both gasp in pain.

"What was that for!?" Nessa cried out. "You go back to the Healing Wing, now! You visibly are not alright! Your eyes are bright with pain and you react badly to everything!"

"I won't go back!" I shouted. My best friend reeled in shock, giving me a wide-eyed look. I never yelled when I was with her. Talk loudly, laugh noisily, yes. But raise my voice like this, anger increasing its loudness; never. "I hear them talk, in low voices. We will reach the Tower in about two days." Which made me wonder about how long we had been out. "They want me to see a psychologist, Vanessa. They pretend something is wrong with my emotional responses and that I need a professional!" I was shaking now. "They think I'm abnormal…" I gasped out.

I needed air, fresh air. I needed to be alone, to have them stop looking at me. Why were they looking at me like this? I wasn't abnormal. I didn't need a psychologist… I needed air… I needed to be left alone!

I ran away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So? Liked it?
> 
> Wondering where Alexanne is running to?
> 
> See you all next week! ;)


	5. 4: Recovery Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here comes chapter 4!
> 
> In which psychologists can't help everybody.
> 
> Warnings for: Emotional distress (or something not so far off).
> 
> French translations are at the bottom, as usual.
> 
> Enjoy!

**Chapter 4: Recovery Time**

My fleeing was cut short by a sudden wall – or should I say man? – whom I hit with all my gathered momentum. Pain exploded in my shoulder when I fell on it and I barely had the time to bring my wrist to my mouth to muffle my wail. I curled into a small ball, willing the pain away. My eyes drifted to my knees instead of the man who was floor too, cursing so colorfully that I had the thought that my swearing wasn't so bad.

And over the cursing, I heard someone laughing. "The great Fury thrown to the floor by a human bullet!" a man snickered. A new string of curses fell from the lips of the one called Fury.

Fury?

Oh my God.

"Lord in Heaven, please someone, kill me now." I muttered, even if I pertinently knew that the prayer would go unnoticed. My belief in religion had disappeared over the course of the years. But right now, if there was truly a supreme higher being, I would have liked a divine intervention.

I had hit the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and thrown him to the floor.

I was _so_  screwed!

"Lex? Are you alright?" Vanessa asked urgently, kneeling next to me and forcing me to look up.

"No. My shoulder feels as if it was filled with hungry red ants dancing around a fire pit and I'm about to get killed by the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. because I used my head for something else than translation and solving Sudoku, this time…" I whispered pathetically. Miserable, I obeyed Ness' silent urging to sit up and swallowed down a whimper. God, that man had a belly of iron!

"Could you ask whoever is snickering to shut the fuck up!?" I growled. The loud chortles of laughter were not helping with my swimming head.  _Great job, De Bellefeuille_. Was it impossible for me to stay out of harm's way for a while?

Since I had begun college, my almost-never-gets-hurt luck had begun to quit me. I had crashed my car into a streetlight when coming back at two o'clock from a travel in the United Kingdom (hospital, two days, concussion and lots of huge bruises, was very lucky, could have  _died!_ ). I had also had a huge cut in the thigh due to a stupid accident with a misplaced piece a scrape metal (risks of tetanus even if I wasn't due for my vaccine, was vaccinated, stitches,  _worst_  wound ever, hate needles, still had a long scar). And there was also the time when I  _sprained_  my right wrist – I'm a  _right-handed_   _translator_ , for God's sake – and could not work on a very important book for weeks.

Could someone explain to me what had happened between my teenage years and the beginning of my adulthood for my luck to suddenly go amiss?

"He won't kill you, you stupid…" she trailed off as she raised her eyes and a dark look clouded her brown orbs.

I followed her gaze. It fell on a brown-haired man with a  _visible_  attitude and a goatee.

Anthony Edward Stark. Who was still chortling behind his hand.

"Hey, Loch Ness! Who's your bullet friend?" he asked cheerfully.

"I'm not a bullet! It was an accident!" I protested, defensively crossing my arms over my chest. What a jerk! "And my name's Alexanne."

I saw his eyebrows twitch. Ah! Try to find me a nickname with 'Alexanne', Stark!

My slightly smug look melted away when I met Fury's glare. Oh shit…

But worry about what Fury was going to do to me fell in the back of my mind when something  _wet_  and  _warm_  trickled down my arm. I shot a small glance to my sleeve. Nothing. But it was black, after all.

I got a hand into my shirt and trailed it down my arm, carefully avoiding my wounded shoulder. Oh, oh… I bit my lip and slowly pulled my hand out. Yep! Exactly what I had feared. My fingers were covered with fresh crimson blood. Oh, great.

Anxiety settled in the pit of my stomach when I met Vanessa's  _thunderous_  glare.

"What. Did you. Do!?" she cried out and I scrambled back a little. There was something looking like tears in her eyes.

"I did not do it on purpose." I weakly protested, clutching my shoulder tightly. It hurt but it hurt less than the tightening feeling in my chest. "It must have opened when… when I hit the punching bag… Or when I fell on it… I'm sorry…"

"Stop saying that!" Vanessa growled. "Fine. You go back to the Healing Wing, now!"

"No! No, I won't go back there!" I did not need a psychologist! I was alright! They would force me to see a psychologist, because their professional opinion had decided that my emotional balance was off the charts. Which in my case was normal, thank you very much. "I'm. Not. Going. Back! I can take care of it. I know what I have to do to take care of it."

"You cannot use stitches on your own." Nessa argued.

"Maybe I can't but I'm sure I can find someone outside of those doctors that can take care of it. As long as there is some morphine, I'll be able to ignore… partly… the fact that a needle will be going in and out of my skin." I crossed my arms over my chest and clenched my jaw, raising my chin in a silent declaration of stubbornness.

That's when we both remembered that we  _weren't_  alone. Everybody – and I mean  _everybody_  – was looking at us.

"We're not some kind of TV show!" Vanessa bit out, shooting irritated glares around.

"But the drama is  _so_  interesting!" Tony teasingly answered.

I face-palmed and let out a growl. "Seriously? Did you seriously say that? Goddamn." I muttered angrily, rubbing a hand over my forehead.

"I believe we both heard him right." Vanessa muttered, shooting her best ice-melting glare toward the man.

"Et moi qui croyait que la idiotie adolescente partait à l'âge adulte. Voilà une preuve que l'immaturité peut survivre le passage des années.*" I grumbled, just loud enough for my friend to hear.

She snorted… and gave me a wide-eyed look. "Fuck, Lex! You look like you just murdered someone!" she exclaimed, reaching out to wipe my forehead. She showed me her fingers, which were now matted with blood. Oops!

Ignoring the pull in my shoulder, I reached up with my clean hand to wipe my face, resisting the urge to lick the blood off my skin. I, unlike some people, wasn't bothered by the taste and smell of blood. But I was not about to act like a vampire in front of everybody; I was already ashamed enough as it was. "Might be about to  _really_  murder someone if they don't stop looking at us like this. I'm feeling quite self-conscious right now…" I muttered.

Vanessa rolled her eyes and pulled me up. From the way she moved, I was aware that she was shielding me from Fury's glare and I didn't know whether to be annoyed or grateful of her protectiveness.

Instead, I sighed and looked over her shoulder. "I'll say it once, and only once. I am truly sorry and I swear that I did not rush into you on purpose, sir." I said to Fury, barely keeping my irritation into check so that it wouldn't slip into my voice.

The man crossed his arms over his chest and glared. "Name, age, nationality, profession!" he barked.

I gaped. "Alexanne De Bellefeuille, 24 years old, Quebec, Canada, student in translation." I answered. God, that man freaked me out. How could someone be able to give such a glare?

He turned his dark eye on Vanessa, who quickly answered. "Vanessa Poirier, 24 years old, Quebec, Canada, student in…"

"Alright! You're both strong enough to walk? And return back to Quebec? Because I don't have time to deal with this!" Fury cut her.

This time, surprisingly, it was Nessa who lost it. "Wait a second, sir! We're not ready yet!" She pointed me. "She is still wounded and she needs stitches!"

"Who cares?" I muttered. I yelped in shock when Vanessa delivered a sudden slap behind my head. "What…"

"Shut up, Alexanne!"

My mouth closed, my teeth snapping together. Had she really…. Had she really? I rubbed the back of my head with my bloodied hand, remembering said  _blood_  too late. I cursed mentally and used my other hand to try to clean the sticky liquid from my hair. Had she really… My face burned. People were talking around me but I couldn't discern the words. What…

I slowly walked to a wall and leaned against it, sliding to the floor. My shoulder was throbbing but it didn't bother me. My throat was raw but I wasn't feeling thirsty. In fact…

A tear trickled down my cheek. And I let out a soft noise. Then another. Until I was suddenly laughing my ass off, holding my ribs and laughing and  _laughing_.

"Alexanne?" Vanessa worriedly knelt in front of me.

"Oh God! You did! You dared!" Tears were streaming down my face and I was feeling light-headed and  _free_. "You really did!"

Ness gaped. "I did what?"

I tried to push out words between chortles of helpless laughter. "You slapped me! And it… hurt! But in a way… that reminds me…" I took a deep breath. "I'm so stupid! And I feel better because you reminded me that things haven't changed so much and I'm so stupid because I'm not abnormal and I don't even know why I thought I was and you slapped me and you never do and you  _slapped me_ …"

Nessa clamped a hand over my mouth. "You're babbling. Breathe."

I shook her hand off and jumped on my feet, suddenly restless. I spun wildly on one foot, arms splayed wide, and almost hit Vaness. She barely avoided me with a protest on her lips and a shake of her head visibly meaning that she thought I had lost my mind and maybe it was due to the fact that I was, in fact, still a little tired and that my shoulder needed stitches. Or maybe I was still high on some kind of drug they had given me at the Healing Wing… Or maybe…

"Whoa! Slow down, you crazy girl!" Vanessa called, catching my arms. Something twisted in my shoulder and I came to a sudden halt, coming down from my sudden high. Ness released my hands and I wiped my eyes before faintly shaking my head.

"Sorry. I needed that." I breathed deeply, surrounding my senses with the smell of blood, metal and sweat and my nose twitched. A harsh pounding suddenly started in my head and I grimaced, pressing down on my temple. The world was spinning around me, colors blurred and everything suddenly looked like a kaleidoscope. "Whoa!" I lost feet, falling on my back and heard Vanessa's angry cries that she "Knew it!" and that I was "A stubborn thick-headed woman!" and that I "Needed to stop thinking that I was alright when I was not!"

Someone scooped me up and I protested, kicking. I wasn't a little girl and I wasn't bleeding so much anymore and I could walk by myself perfectly fine because it wouldn't be worse than someone who was drunk and…

"Lex, will you just calm down!"

"But I feel fucking stupid! Put me down!"

"Are you sure you will be able to walk, Daughter of the Leaves?" Ah, so it was Thor who was holding me.

I answered "Yes!" at the same time Vaness barked out a "No!" and Thor stopped moving, confused. I wriggled and tried to escape but the god gently tightened his hold on me. A sudden sting in my arm and I let out an angry hiss.

"Leave me the fuck alone with your bloody needles!"

Oh great... A drug to make me sleep. The drowsy feeling was spreading through me and I mustered whatever energy I had left to mutter a soft "Fuck you" to whoever was listening before unconsciousness took over.

*o*O*o*O*o*

I woke up with my face pressed in the pillow and hair in my mouth. There were voices in the room and it reminded me that I wasn't home but somewhere not too far from New York City. Discreetly turning on my uninjured side, I spat the hair out and listened, keeping my eyes closed and my body in its sleeping position.

"While it doesn't happen often, there is the possibility that her body reacted to the fact that she has been on drugs for days, the time the infection went down. We have readings showing that her hormonal ratings went up drastically. It might be the reason why she seemed to lose her mind for a while. She is alright now. She only needs sleep, food and I would recommend something to keep her shoulder still if she continues to put pressure on it." A man said. It wasn't Dr. Banner's voice. It wasn't someone I recognized.

A soft sigh. "Alright. She won't be happy with this but she needs to heal." Vanessa answered. I felt slightly irritated at her easy acceptance but I forced myself to relax so that it wouldn't be apparent that I was awake. "How long does she need to be kept in bed?"

"She can walk around if she wants to. But she can't do anything that might put pressure on her shoulder. And she needs to listen to her body's calls when she needs food and sleep." The man answered.

A faint growl rumbled in my throat. Holy…

I heard the door close and Vanessa suddenly was at my bedside, kneeling beside me. I opened an eye, not bothering to put an emotionless face on. I was annoyed and it showed.

"You heard what he said?" my best friend asked and I growled, sitting up.

"Yeah! I heard. She can't do anything that might put pressure on her shoulder and blah, blah, blah! That means that I can't do  _anything_  at all with my arm! Fucking…" My cursing trailed off to inaudible mumbling as I had to hold myself back from  _crossing my arms over my chest_! Rubbing my forehead with my right hand, I sighed. "When is Fury shipping us back to Quebec?" I asked softly, looking up.

Ness shrugged. "I don't know. After you had your weird crazy pass, Fury stomped off and the other Avengers suddenly decided on a meeting. Thor dropped you here before going back and I was left alone with you and the doctor who just exited the room." she explained calmly, looking bored.

I nodded slowly and patted the space beside me. Vanessa gave me a look before sitting on the bed. I leaned against her shoulder. "Sorry for my weird behavior. I don't know what went through me. It was freeing, though."

She hummed faintly in answer and I blinked a few times, as if it could change the whiteness of the walls.

"Ness, I don't want to stay here. At all. I need to see something else than this room or I'm going to go crazy." I said, getting out of the bed. "I need clothes. Where can I find clothes?" I muttered.

Nessa stood and opened a white door. What I had thought was a closet for medicine was in fact a closet with clothes. A lot of clothes. I went to Ness' side and looked inside. There was a bit of everything, seriously. From pressed blouses and black skirts to jeans and hoodies. I gaped.

"You're kidding me, right?" I pulled a pair of jeans out of the closet and looked at the size. Right size for me… "Wait a sec, the clothes in there aren't all mine, are they?" Ness gave me a short nod and I gave her a disbelieving look. "Where did you find yours, then?" I asked in a faint voice.

Ness rolled her eyes. "I have a full closet too."

A little light bulb suddenly clicked on in my head. "Don't tell me…"

My best friend nodded. "Yeah. Tony Stark bought a full wardrobe for me and a full wardrobe for you." she answered, crossing her arms over her chest. "And I don't even know where since we're still on the Helicarrier."

_Are they keeping us up there on purpose?_  I wondered. I shook my head and peered into the closet again.

"But we're not even staying for long… Why did he… Why didn't he only buy enough clothes for about a week? I mean…" I shook my head and threw the pair of jeans on the bed before taking out a coffee brown t-shirt with a white cup of coffee on it. "I like this one. Do you think there's a place where I can have coffee?" I asked Vanessa, who only raised her eyes to the sky.

"Yeah, I guess. But first…"

*o*O*o*O*o*

I did have a cup of coffee. One milk, two sugars. Only an hour later than what I would have liked.

Sitting near a window, I looked outside at the fluffy white clouds before looking back down at the opened leather book on my lap. I had been forced to see a psychologist, to my total unhappiness. They could call me a baby if they wanted too, but what I wanted to keep personal was mine to keep. That's all. That and the fact that no matter what Vanessa thought, psychologists couldn't help me. I had understood that I was left on my own to deal with my emotional baggage during my high school years, after a few fruitless visits to the school psychologist's office.

The psychologist – Dr. Whitelaw, if I remembered well – hadn't been so bad, though. She had tried to encourage me to talk and had seemed happy when I had told her some basic data about myself. The fact that I loved to write had been part of that data and she had given me a leather book to write whatever I wanted in.

I trailed my fingers over the smooth white pages and twirled the black pen Dr. Whitelaw had given me between my fingers. Black pen, black ink. I liked black ink. It was professional, dark and easy to see on most papers…

I pressed the pen down on the spotless paper and slowly wrote my name, carefully tracing every letter.

_Alexanne De Bellefeuille_

Looking outside again, I taped the pen against my lower lip. My ass was hurting from sitting on a thin metal window ledge but I pushed the pain in the back of my mind – I was becoming good at this – and observed the clouds. The fact that my wounded shoulder was pressed against the window wasn't immensely comfortable either but, somewhat, I didn't want to move.

_I'm a translator..._

It was meaningless to write such mundane things. I almost biffed the words before shaking my head and letting my gaze trail over the immensity of the sky again.

This cloud looked like a dragon head, this one like a clover. One looked like a lily flower, another like a knife…

A shiver shook me and I glanced back down at the book and the pen held in a now shaking hand.

"Are you okay?"

The voice made me shriek and fall off the window ledge. My ass met the hard floor and a painful shock went up my spine, leaving me gasping for air.

"Holy fucking shit!" I gasped as two hands pulled me on my feet. A whine escaped me at the pain in my back and I cursed my reaction.

"Sorry… How are you feeling?"

I turned my head and met bright blue eyes. Bright ocean blue eyes filled with concern and compassion. I lost myself in the eyes for a few seconds before I understood the question.

"As well as I can be." I answered cryptically and Steve – because, of course, it was Steve Rogers – frowned slightly.

"Which means?"

I snorted and – shrugging off his gentle hold on my shoulders – I turned to face him. "Listen. If you push, I'm going to spill out everything on my mind and unless you want to be the receiving end of whatever emotion I have contained, you'd better leave me alone. I've got nothing against you but I'm not exactly in such a great mood and I'm often… um… hard to deal with when I lose the small control I have over my emotions, okay?" I crouched momentarily to retrieve the leather book and the black pen, dropping them on the window ledge.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Steve asked and I shot him a thoughtful glance over my shoulder. Did I want to talk about it? Did I want to tell him what I had not told Dr. Whitelaw? Did I want to spill my insecurities to a man I barely knew?

I turned to face him and leaned against the window, the metal ledge digging uncomfortably in my lower back.

"I… No… Not really… I don't know…" I sighed deeply and rubbed a hand over my eyes. "It is so… complicated… My emotions…" I shut my mouth and shook my head, giving up.

Steve's gaze softened and he nodded before coming forward and leaning against the wall, not too far from me. Silent support. I appreciated it.

I closed my eyes and focused on his breathing, shutting everything else off.

* * *

_*French Translations_

_"Et moi qui croyait que la idiotie adolescente partait à l'âge adulte. Voilà une preuve que l'immaturité peut survivre le passage des années."_ \--> _"And here I thought that teenage idiocy disappeared with adulthood. This is proof that immaturity can survive the passage of years."_


	6. 5: Ink and Bruises

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is chapter 5.
> 
> In which pens are unlucky and Alexanne may be slightly masochist.
> 
> Warnings for emotional distress that is not being properly dealt with.
> 
> Enjoy!

**Chapter 5: Ink and Bruises**

"Let's start with when you woke up. What do you remember?" asked the woman in front of me.

I currently was in Dr. Kelly Whitelaw's loaned office in the Avengers Tower, playing with a black pen. Because of Vanessa, actually.

We were staying longer than what I had thought because Ness – dear, stubborn Ness – had decided to have a long discussion – debate, in fact – with the Avengers and Director Fury on my psychological case. To summarize, she had basically told them that I needed to see a psychologist – something on which I was very much  _not_  agreeing – and that SHIELD, with the jobs their agents did, had the best psychologists you could find. She had also pointed out that they had said they would take care of all our wounds and that psychological wounds existed. And that I visibly had some. She had also given a brief – but long anyway – list of examples on my lack of emotional control and my high sensitivity until Fury had finally bent to her demands.

So we were staying in New York for God knows how long because of my  _"need"_  to see a professional…

"What do you remember?" Dr. Whitelaw asked again, patiently. "Write it down." she gestured the pen held tightly by my fingers.

I glanced up and met her brownish grey eyes. "Too much…" I muttered, my eyes falling back down to the leather book on my lap.

_A dark room with a huge mirror-wall. My best friend still unconscious, lying on the stony floor of the dusty cell. Abrasions on my skin, leftovers of duct tape. Cold and feeling alone, so far from home._

"Good?" I nodded, a brief jerky movement of my head. "Can you write down how you felt at first?"

_Lost; far from home. Alone; Vanessa is still out of reach. Uncomfortable; the cell is small, oppressing. Rising panic, deep worry. Fear. For myself, for Vanessa. Incomprehension. What did they want from us? Why? Emotions. Too many emotions, boiling under my skin…_

_CONTROL!_

I whispered the word at the same time I wrote it down and I clenched my hand tightly around the pen. It suddenly snapped in two, covering my hand, my forearm, my t-shirt, my jeans and the leather book in jet black liquid. I looked down at the now-ruined white t-shirt, at the ink dripping onto my pants and seeping through the once-immaculate pages of the book.

"Wow. Good job, De Bellefeuille." I muttered before opening my hand, the broken pen falling to the floor, more ink dripping.

_Stupid._

Stupid, foolish, over-emotional woman. I gently dropped the book on Dr. Whitelaw's desk and, with a soft "Sorry" hissed through gritted teeth, I exited the office, running to the nearest elevator.

I punched the number of the Avengers' common floor and slumped against the metallic wall, choking on sobs and desperately trying to hold back the uprising tide of emotions. I slammed my left fist – the one not dripping ink  _everywhere_  – against the wall, ignoring the throbbing protest of the still tender muscles of my healing shoulder. I hit the wall again. I tried to focus on the pain, to ground myself. Again.

"Miss De Bellefeuille, can I do something for you?" JARVIS' voice broke through my hazy thoughts and I closed my eyes, my forehead hitting the wall with a soft 'thud'.

"No. Sadly, there's nothing you can do, JARVIS. Thanks for asking, though."

The 'ding' of the elevator made me move away from the wall to enter the room. The tiny hope that I would be alone was crushed as soon as I met Clint's weirdly coloured eyes. Grey? Blue? Green? A mix of the three? Or maybe they were like mine. Grey-blue, but a few shades paler.

"What did you do?" he asked, eyes opened comically wide. I would have smiled, had I been in better spirits.

I shrugged. "Had a fight with a pen."

Clint's eyebrows went up. "Did it win?"

I shot him a small icy glare. "No. I snapped it in two. It made quite a mess." And to prove my point, I raised my ink splattered hand.

The archer's gaze travelled down the length of my arms. "And this?" He gestured my other hand and I frowned, raising it too.

Red.

"Oops." I trailed an ink-stained finger over my ripped knuckles, watching with fascination as the black mixed with the red. A rueful chuckle escaped me. "Why am I not even surprised that I managed to do that?" I whispered. "I make a mess of everything." I turned my hands, looked at my palms. "Even my own hands." I clenched them into fists again and, avoiding Clint's gaze, I went to the kitchen sink, opened the tap and putted my hands under the water. A good dollop of soap, rubbing until there was only a faint trace of ink on my hands. I also rubbed soap on my stained forearm until the skin began to turn pink from it. I turned around, looking for a towel… only to have one dangling in front of my face.

"Thanks." I muttered to the archer, drying the wet skin.

He crossed his arms and thoughtfully observed me. I met his gaze momentarily before breaking eye-contact almost immediately and turning away.

"Sorry for disturbing you." I muttered, not because I was really sorry but to break the silence.

Clint raised an eyebrow. "You didn't disturb me." He stretched and rolled his shoulders and I couldn't help but enviously follow the easy movement of strong muscles with my eyes. Maybe I should do some exercise. It would loosen the muscle in my shoulder…

"There's a gym in this tower, right?" I asked, looking up.

The archer snorted. "There are many things in the Tower." He shook his head and cracked a half-smile. "But yeah, there is a gym. Do you want to see it?"

I nodded. "Yeah. But I need to change clothes first. 'Cause these are ruined…"

*o*O*o*O*o*

Fifteen minutes and a change of clothes later, we were in the gym, warming ourselves up. I had asked Clint if he would like to spar against me and had had to chuckle at his obvious surprise.

"You know how to spar?" he had asked me.

"You're going to kick my ass, but yeah. Kind of." I had answered before looking away and focussing on my own body.

Sitting on one heel, the other leg extended in front of myself, I minutely wondered if I was not, in fact, really a masochist. Clint was wearing a black t-shirt clinging to his torso, rippling muscles visible through the thin cloth. The tight pants he wore hid none of the strength in those legs and I spared a small glance for my own tissue-clad legs, tensing and relaxing the muscles, comparing them to the archer's.

"You sure you want to spar?" he asked and I felt a spark of annoyance mix with the excitement and dread spreading through me.

I licked my lips and stood on the tip of my toes, stretching my arms as high as possible before shrugging. "Sure. I won't back off. And I'm not afraid of a few bruises…"

Clint raised an eyebrow at this and I got a sudden weird feeling in my gut. We barely knew each other but I knew the guy was a trained assassin. A professional. He would not only kick my ass. He would  _kick my ass_. Literally. But was it pride, stubbornness or plain stupidity, I didn't back off and climbed on the ring with him.

"May I ask something?"

The archer rolled his shoulders. "Shoot."

"I have no gun." I pointed out flatly, not really teasing. "Why did  _you_  accept to spar with me? I mean, I'm not going to be hard to send to the mattress. So why did you accept to spend time with a woman from Quebec who is emotionally unstable and "in need of psychological attention"? I mean…" I rubbed my forehead. "I don't know why I asked in the first place."

Clint was surprised. He gave me a long look, only speaking when I had begun to squirm under his piercing gaze. "I accepted because you are intriguing. And you look like you need it. And don't feel left out because of your differences. We're all a bit insane anyway." He crouched slightly and clapped his hands together. "Ready to have your ass kicked, Tiger?"

His tone was playful but I could not hold back the flinch. He raised an eyebrow but I shook my head and carefully closed my hands into fists. "Ready when you are, Hawk." I answered softly.

A glint in his eyes… And he suddenly was lunging for me, as swift as a bird of prey. Only a quick drop to the mattress prevented me from receiving a blow. I rolled, jumped on my feet, letting out something resembling a squeak when he kicked me in the legs. I fell, hard, onto the mattress. The world was spinning before my eyes. But adrenaline was pumping through my veins and I could already feel my heart beating in my temples.

"Are you–?"

"I'm okay!" I jumped on my feet again, grimacing slightly at the muscles shifting in my back. It would be killing me tomorrow. "I'm ready to go at it again." And I jumped forward, aiming for his chest… only to meet empty air and a sudden blow to the middle of my back. I met the mattress again with a faint noise escaping me. I kicked Clint's knee, felt it give under my feet and I heard the archer curse.

"So you play dirty." he pointed out, nimbly jumping back on his feet and delivering a sudden – and quite painful – blow to my right side as I got back up. The air was expulsed out of me and I let out a string of curses, bringing a leg up in an attempt to hit him in the face.

Bad idea. Clint caught my leg, holding me up by it. "Nice move." he commented. I did something stupid, but I guess it could be an idea if I wanted to get someone to release me. I used my other leg to kick him behind the knees, sending us both to the mattress, him falling on me heavily.

Ouch! My head hit the mattress and I definitely was done for today. Not such a great idea, in fact. If a cushioned ground almost knocked me out, a simple floor would give me a concussion.

"You okay?" Clint asked and I hummed faintly in answer. He stood and grabbed my arms, pulling me up. I staggered, dizzy, and was thankful for the strong arm he wrapped around my middle. "Lean against me… We're going to put some ice on your head…" I felt fingers sweep slowly through my hair, gently palpating my head until they caressed something that sent a throb of pain to my brain. My vision blacked out for a couple of seconds.

"I'm just dizzy but don't touch that!" I protested.

Clint guided me into an elevator and the ride was blissfully short before we were stepping in a brightly lit room.

The archer made me sit before leaving me alone with soft mutters about ice. I heard him rummage in the kitchen, heard another voice which made the holy bells of heaven ring joyfully in my head.

"What are you looking for, Barton?"

"Ice, Stark. Surely you have such a simple thing as ice in your fancy freezer?" Clint answered the voice – Tony.

"What do you need ice for, Barton?" I stood on wobbly legs and took carefully a couple of small steps toward the nearest wall before leaning gratefully against it and using it as an aid to walk to the kitchen.

The two men in the kitchen turned to look at me when I dragged myself to a chair… and missed it, falling on the floor, another throb making my vision black out again for another couple of seconds. "I'm done for today…" I muttered, finally managing to sit on the chair. How come such a simple task was suddenly so complicated?

A pack of ice was pressed in my hand and I brought it gratefully to the point of pain on my head. "Thanks." I sighed.

"Loch Ness won't be happy to see you got injured. Again." Tony commented and I gave him one of my best ice-melting glares. She didn't like the nickname. The less he could do was to stop using it! Did my best friend look like a lake, goddamn? Sure, she liked water but she wasn't  _made of_  water. And if he wanted so much to call her Ness, he just had to say it without the 'Loch' in front…

I took a couple of deep breaths. "What Vanessa doesn't know doesn't matter to her." I muttered. "I did what I wanted to do and got slightly hurt in the process. So what? It's not like it's the first time it happens and I doubt it will be the last." I raised my eyes and met Tony's. "May I have a glass of water, please?"

The pounding in my head was slowly fading away and I lifted the ice pack to gently prod the swelling bump on my head. It sent a fresh wave of painful throbbing to my brain but otherwise… I met Clint's eyes. "Hey." He cocked his head slightly. "I'm alright. I'm not bleeding. I'm not rolling on the floor with foam coming out of my mouth or anything. I'm able to move normally. I'm still a bit dizzy and my head hurts but it'll pass with a glass of water and a Tylenol. No big deal. In fact, I'd like to spar again… not now but somewhere in the future."

The archer cracked a smile and shook his head. "You're crazy."

"Yep! That's me. That's like my… third name." I answered teasingly, before taking a sip from the glass of water that I had suddenly noticed.

Tony was leaning against the counter, arms crossed over his chest, blocking the glow of the arc reactor. "Still. Where is your guard dog? I thought Loch Ness -"

"Don't call her that." I cut him, levelling a sharp glare on him.

A smirk appeared on his lips. "I thought Loch Ness was keeping you under her constant watch."

I growled. "She's going to have me back under her constant watch soon. Knowing her, she's probably storming around trying to find me since Dr. Whitelaw probably told her that I fled the office after destroying a poor little black pen and ruining a pair of jeans and one of my brand new t-shirts. White, if I may add."

Tony's eyebrows went up. "Why did you destroy a poor little black pen?"

"That's none of your business." I gritted out.

The man narrowed his eyes, observing me, analysing me, and I childishly threw him the ice pack, which caught him straight in the middle of the face.

"Strike." I said, crossing my arms over my chest while Clint began to snicker.

Tony gently massaged his nose. "Ouch." He glared. "What was that for?"

"Baseball." I answered, rolling my eyes when he snorted. "No, seriously, I'm not a fascinating object you can study and try to dismantle, Stark. Don't try to look into my mind and understand me; it won't interest you." I explained through Clint's huffs of laugher. Tony took a chair and sat in front of me.

"And that was your reason for throwing me an ice pack?" the dark-haired man asked, a visible pout on his lips. "It  _hurt_." I suddenly realised that he was  _faking_  his offended face. That he was just… joking, making fun of me.

It surprisingly didn't annoy me as much as it should have.

I snorted. "You've got to be kidding me. Ironman got beaten by an icepack on his nose. Aw, poor little boy." I reached across the table and petted his hair. "Are we happy now? I'm sorry I hurt your precious perfect nose." I rolled the 'r' in 'perfect', liking the way Tony's expression morphed into shock.

He was actually gaping and I thought momentarily that I had pushed things too far… if I did not consider Clint's giggles.  _Note to myself: Never tell Clint Barton that he is giggling._ Then, Tony pressed a hand over the arc reactor and looked at Clint.

"This is the respect she has for the marvelous Tony Stark! I'm wounded!" He tried puppy dog eyes on me and I let out a snort.

"Nope. Doesn't work with me. Nice try, though. You do look kind of cute." Okay. I was doomed. I had just called Tony Stark cute. To his face. Did I have an unconscious death wish or what?

"Kind of cute? What do you mean?"

I jumped at the sound of the new voice and turned around. Vanessa was standing just outside of the elevator, a look of pure disbelief on her face. "Cute? Did you got brainwashed or what? Since when this old piece of rags is cute?"

Clint fell off his chair, rolling on the floor and laughing his ass off. Tony gave him a kick. Which only made the archer laugh harder. A giggle escaped me, which I barely had the time to muffle behind my hand as Tony levelled a glare on Vanessa.

"You don't judge a man on how old he is."

"Even if it's you?" my best friend bit out, crossing her arms and looking at him with a calm I'm-not-taking-your-shit look on her face.

Tony looked torn between wanting to pout again or kick my friend's ass. He finally settled on an offended pout – a real one, this time – and none too gently kicked Clint again. "Damn it Barton, you're supposed to be on my side." he growled.

Clint climbed back onto his chair and swung his feet on the table, the shoes ending a bare five centimetres away from my hands. "They're putting you back to your place, Stark. I'm not helping you with this." He looked around the kitchen. "Is there popcorn?"

Huffing in slight annoyance at the obvious lack of disrespect, I curled my hands around Clint ankles and forced his feet back to the floor. "Tables are made for eating. Not putting your feet on it. Even if I guess that table saw much worse than food." I said, my voice sounding strangely calm and soft despite the lurking tidal wave that was always within me, waiting for a lack of emotional control.

Ness muttered "No details, thanks." and Tony smirked as she came forward and took a seat. She eyed me with rising suspicion before suddenly reaching out and pressing on a spot on my cheekbone. I let out a yelp at the sudden pain and she raised an eyebrow, giving me a glare.

"That's a bruise. How did you get it?" she asked coldly, her tone meaning that she didn't want to hear any lies.

"SparredatthegymwithClintbecauseIwantedtodosomeexercisegotafewbruisesintheprocessnothingtoworryabout." I debited quickly.

"What? Could you repeat that more clearly?"

I took a deep breath and met her glare with one of mine. "I wanted to do some exercise. Clint showed me the gym. I asked him to spar against me. I got a few bruises in the process. There is nothing to worry about." I repeated slowly, clearly.

Vanessa rolled her eyes. I saw Tony about to open his mouth and, fearing that he might tell Ness about the ice pack, I gave him a good kick in the shins.

"OW!"

Vanessa, Clint and I looked at the grimacing billionaire, who gently rubbed the point of contact. I forced my face to stay as blank as possible.

"Who kicked me and why?" Tony hissed, glaring at the three of us. His eyes lingered a bit longer on me and I did a quick movement. One finger over the throat before mouthing:  _"Shut it!"_

Thankfully, he looked like he understood, even if he huffed and shook his head. Clint, who was glancing at me, didn't open his mouth. But Vanessa tensed and looked between the three of us. "What happened?"

"Nothing." I answered airily, swallowing a grimace when my best friend rolled her eyes.

"Sure. The three of you are hiding something, you just kicked Tony and there's nothing going on. Sure." The sarcasm was thick in her voice.

"Nothing happened beside what you already know." I growled angrily, annoyance rising. "I broke a pen and spilled ink everywhere about an hour and a half earlier. Is that what you are asking?"

"Alright! Don't tell me!" She looked as if she was chewing on other words but I did not comment on it.

None of us spoke again for God knows how long until Thor loudly arrived in the room, asking for food, followed by Natasha, Steve and Bruce.


	7. 6: Fights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is chapter 6!
> 
> In which fights happen... just not the big kind of fight.
> 
> Enjoy!

**Chapter 6: Fights**

The cold air was nipping at my nose as I walked outside. For the beginning of March, I had to say that, while it was normal in Quebec to have such temperatures at this time of the year, I thought that it would be warmer in New York than in Montreal. Not that I was whining too much; the crisp air was doing wonders on my boiling mind, cooling it down for a while.

But I really should have thought about a hooded coat and some gloves.

Shivering slightly, I pressed my nose into the navy blue scarf wrapped around my neck and tried to push my hands deeper into my coat's pockets.

A little voice in the back of my mind whispered that I should have stayed at the Tower. But after a particularly heavy fight with Vanessa, the thought of stomping off to my bedroom and locking myself in seemed too childish to me. I had grabbed a coat and a pair of running shoes instead and had gone outside to breathe a bit of fresh air.

The fight with Ness had been about her growing irritation with my obstinacy to keep things to myself and, in my case, my growing annoyance with her over-protectiveness. I wasn't a teenager anymore and I believed that I was perfectly able to think by myself, make mistakes and take good decisions.

Thing is…

It wasn't the first fight.

In fact, in the last week, I had fought with Vanessa more than I could remember fighting with her in a whole month. She was worried, accusing me of not taking care of myself and was probably still a little shocked about the whole kidnapping ordeal too. I was growing restless, irritated and was taking care of myself, thank you. Regular visits at the gym had finally gotten rid of the pain in my shoulder and made me lose a bit of weight I was not even aware that I had taken. A new laptop had permitted me to go back to my job, even if I had to revise my Italian so that I wouldn't mix some words with the Spanish equivalents.

I was feeling a lot better.

This was why the accusations over the assumption that I was apparently not taking care of myself had blown a fuse or two.

I uselessly kicked a rock and watched it bounce down the street. This street was a small one and there weren't so much people. In fact… I didn't recognize the buildings.

I was lost.

"Holy…" I breathed deeply. "Okay, then. I'll take a taxi to go back home."

Home… I shook my head. What was I saying? Home was kilometers away. I would take a taxi to go back to the  _Tower_.

A quick look to my watch informed me that I had been outside for approximately an hour and a half, which was probably why my ears felt as if they were about to freeze. I removed my hands from my now warm coat pockets and pressed them over my ears, gritting my teeth at the sudden twinge of pain it caused.

"Mraow."

I felt my irritation melt as I spotted the source of the noise. It was a pepper and salt colored cat with a crooked tail. It was looking at me curiously, bluish green eyes observing me attentively. The cold forgotten for a while, I crouched and rubbed two fingers together.

"Hey, cat. Come here."

It didn't move, only blinked lazily. I smirked and took a small step forward, still crouching, careful not to startle the feline. "Come." I called softly, taking another cautious step forward. The cat suddenly came to me, sniffing the offered hand carefully, as if looking for a hidden poison. When it looked satisfied with its inspection, I gently reached to pet its head.

It pressed its head against my palm in answer and I felt warmth bloom in my chest when it began to purr as I scratched its ears.

"Well, aren't you a pretty one." I murmured, trailing my fingers along its neck, smiling widely when it tried to follow the movement. I brought my hand back to scratching its ears and the cat seemed very content with this. It flopped down on its side and looked at me accusingly when I stopped my attentions for a few seconds to take another step forward and sit down.

The feline's purrs were soothing and I forgot the cold pavement under my ass, the cold wind blowing my hair in my face and the fact that my fingers felt a bit stiff. All that mattered was how calm I felt and the fact that I had missed the feel of a cat's fur under my fingers.

I loved cats. I had grown up with cats. And I had decided to adopt two or three cats at the SPCA once I would have bought a small house at the end of my university years.

The sudden vibration in my pocket and the melody of "Hakuna Matata" brought me back to reality and I fished out my cell from my pocket, looking mournfully at the cat's departing silhouette.

"Hakuna Matata" meant Vanessa.

With a sigh, I answered.

"Yes?"

"Alexanne De Bellefeuille, where the fuck are you?"

"Somewhere in New York City, why?" I answered while standing and waving an arm to interest a taxi. One saw me.

"Where?" Vanessa stressed the word and I frowned. What was her problem? I shook my head before entering the taxi and pressing a hand over the microphone. "Stark Tower." I told the taxi driver before comfortably settling back.

"Going back to the Tower." I answered Ness' previous question calmly. "I'm in a taxi right now."

"Have you checked your watch?" she bit out and I could feel the annoyance rising up again. I checked my watch. 12:33. Oops.

"Oops. Sorry." I had told however had been paying attention to me before going out that I would be back before lunch. Lunch was normally at 12:00, unless your name was Tony Stark… or Alexanne De Bellefeuille, I guess. "Listen, I'm just about thirty minutes late and I didn't see the time pass by."

"Alexanne! You've been gone for about two hours and a half! What were you doing?"

"Walking!" I said angrily, but keeping my voice low. No need to interest the driver to the stupid fight I was having with Ness… again. "Listen. I'll be at the Tower in maximum…" I looked outside, starting to recognize some buildings, "in max fifteen minutes. See you then." And I ended the call.

Jesus. What was wrong with us?

*o*O*o*O*o*

"Hey! What's for lunch? I'm starving." I walked into the kitchen, gently rubbing my cold ears to bring back some heat into them. I caught a whiff of something like… "Eggs?"

"Omelette." Steve answered, gesturing toward the two plates on the counter top. "One for Tony, one for you."

"You know what?" I grabbed some utensils before picking up the two plates. "I'll bring Tony his omelette. I'm curious to see his workshop." In fact, I wanted to avoid Vanessa's possible wrath and eat in peace before confronting her – again – about her over-protectiveness. I did not need to be monitored 24 hours a day, thank you very much.

Steve gave me a gentle smile. "Make sure he eats it, though. If he asks for what's in it, tell him that there is shredded cheddar, green pepper, mushrooms…"

I cut him with a small shake of head and a smirk. "I'll tell him there is no poison in his omelette. I think it shall suffice." I gave Steve a small nod and exited the kitchen feeling lighter. Apart from the uncomfortable situation between Nessa and me, my day was going quite well. I had slept well, the walk had been refreshing, petting the cat had been comforting and I had managed to talk with Steve without making a fool of myself.

I was whistling "Olympic Fanfare and Theme" when I entered Tony's workshop and the genius looked up from his blue screens with a frown. He turned toward me, the frown morphing into a smirk when he caught sight of the omelettes.

"Did Steve send you?" he asked. I gave him a plate and a fork and he eagerly began to eat. He let out a happy noise. "I have to say, Capsicle's cooking is great."

"Nope, Steve didn't send me. I offered my services." I answered, carefully pushing some papers and a StarkPad or two to clear a spot on the desk. I sat down, took a small bite of the omelette and let out an appreciative sigh. I was very hungry and the omelette was divine. "Hmm… True. That's really good." I took another bite.

We ate in silence, strangely comfortable together. Tony raised an amused eyebrow when I finished my omelette before him and silently watched me as I trailed a curious finger over the surface of one of the glowing screens, letting out a surprised noise – I did  _not_  squeak – when it made the window displaying images of what looked like special arrows disappear.

"Sorry! Not touching anything else!" I said, crossing my arms and tucking my hands under my armpits. Tony chuckled and tapped twice on the screen. The arrows came back into view. Curiosity took over and I hesitantly reached out for another screen, tapping on a folder. It opened on a few written documents and I met Tony's brown eyes, silently asking for permission. He quickly scanned the screen before nodding.

"Go on. If you are interested by technique documents on the arc reactor that I have yet to find someone trustworthy and  _competent_  to translate them in French, Italian, Russian…"

"I can." It came out before I could even think about it and Tony looked up at me, surprised. Embarrassed, I chewed on my lower lip before continuing. "I mean… ah, well. I'm a translator, see? And my first language is French and I'm not so bad in Italian… Becoming good, in Italian, come to think of it. I also know German and Spanish. I guess I could… uh… see what I can do." I spluttered, dragging a hand through my long dark hair.

"Japanese?"

I blinked. "Japanese, no. Sorry. Never was attracted by Asian languages, strangely enough. I want to learn Russian, though."

Tony's eyebrows went up. "Six languages?"

I shrugged. "Well… As long as I practice and remember that… uh… nuvola is cloud in Italian and that nube is cloud in Spanish, for example… And all those crazy grammar rules… I think I'm able to use correctly six languages. Maybe seven if I do learn Dutch."

Tony whistled and silently watched as I tapped twice on the first document. I did not really read what was written. I quickly scanned the page and corrected a few mistakes I found here and there, out of habit.

"Well… Since you offered so nicely…" Tony was smirking as I met his eyes. He gestured the screen. "Have fun translating it in as many languages as you want." He winked and I felt vaguely confused. "And feel free to ask if you want something in exchange."

I felt a smile tugging at the corner of my lips and I shook my head before I laughed softly. "Alright. I'll transfer this on my laptop and 'have fun', as you putted it so well." I corrected another small mistake. "Though, it's true. I became a translator because I like to play with words and languages." I stood and piled the two plates before giving Tony a smile. "See you later."

Now, I had to talk to Vanessa.

*o*O*o*O*o*

Pressed against a wall in the archery range – because there was really everything in this tower, even a huge archery range – I observed Clint as he shot arrow after arrow, hitting the center dead on each time.

The… discussion with Vanessa hadn't gone so well.

I rubbed a hand over my face before pushing a couple of long strands of hair from my face. It needed a trim…

"Goddamn." I breathed the cuss softly. Maybe I should have gone back outside but from the slightly painful throbbing in my ears, I figured that it would be better if I were to stay inside.

" _What's your problem, Alexanne?"_

" _I could ask the same thing to you, Vanessa. I don't need monitoring. In fact, I'm perfectly able to take care of myself." I hissed, crossing my arms over my chest._

_She crossed hers in a mimic of my posture and glared. "You avoid every appointment you have with Dr. Whitelaw and you pretend you are taking care of yourself?"_

_I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. "Vaness. Maybe I needed a psychologist after the whole kidnapping thing. But I don't anymore." She opened her mouth to say something else but I cut her. "Leave me the fuck alone about the fact that I'm still under shock and blah, blah, blah! I'm not the only one who was kidnapped, Vanessa! Maybe you should start thinking about taking care of_ yourself _!" I bit out._

It had gone downhill from there. Vanessa was not agreeing with me; that was pretty much evident. I was stubborn and had stood my ground. I was… well maybe not "alright" but feeling better. Nightmares were rare and I rarely woke up screaming. In fact, I would often just open my eyes, take a look around the dark bedroom and kick the covers away. Then, I would take a couple of deep breaths to calm my frantic heartbeat and try to replay the nightmare in my head to push it into the  _not-important things_  drawer in the back of my mind.

I was dealing with it. Without the help of a psychologist. So what? If I was okay on my own, why did Ness think that I still needed professional help? I didn't want to talk about it or write about it. In fact… I had not written something relaxing in a long time.

"Tiger. Alexanne."

I blinked, suddenly finding myself nose to nose with Clint Barton. I would have reeled back if not for the wall against my back.

"Can I help you?" I asked faintly before clearing my throat and meeting the archer's eyes. So close, his eyes were a pale grey with blue hues and a sparkle of green.

He smirked. "What are you doing? You look quite bored."

"Thinking. Musing over my life in the last weeks." I blurted out before I could think about it.  _Oh blast!_  I thought, letting my head fall back against the wall.  _So much for not talking about it, De Bellefeuille._

Clint looked vaguely surprised – though, how could you tell with him? He was a trained assassin and surely pretty good at masking his emotions – but I shrugged. "Nothing important." I finished lamely.

The archer observed me a bit longer before stepping away and going back to the place where were stocked the necessary things for archery… before beckoning me.

"Come. Did you do archery before?"

"High school and only a little bit." I answered, obeying his silent gesture and wearily observing him while he studied a bow. "Why?"

He gently dropped a bow in my right hand, which I transferred into my left. "How is it?" Clint asked and I gently weighted the weapon.

"Maybe a bit too heavy." I answered, focusing on the weapon in my hand and pushing the lingering anger in the back of my mind.

The archer nodded, putted back the bow and gave me another one. "How about this one?"

I liked that one. Less heavy than the first and it fitted comfortably in my hand. I nodded and took a quiver of arrows before finding a target. As I notched the first arrow on the bowstring, I had a vague thought about my fight with Vanessa but I pushed it away to focus on the present moment.

Clint was attentively observing me and I shot him a glance. "What?" The word came out more aggressively than I had intended.

The man shook his head. "I was thinking about showing you how to shoot properly. Maybe another day. Now, you just need to focus on something simple but asking your full concentration."

If I translated it in my own words, Clint was telling me that I was thinking too much and needed to empty my mind for a while.

I could do that.

Pull. Aim. Focus. Release.

*o*O*o*O*o*

"You're avoiding Loch Ness."

I stopped eating, my fork about three centimeters away from my mouth, and I shot Tony something between a surprised glance and a glare.

"First, her name is Vanessa. Second, I'm not avoiding her. Third, if I hadn't come, you would have probably waited another couple of hours before eating something nutritive." I answered quickly, before eating the piece of lasagna on the fork.

"But you're avoiding her. While I know that I'm pretty cool and that my charm is irresistible," I rolled my eyes and snorted, "I don't see what could interest you in coming down to eat with me two times in the same day apart from trying to avoid someone. You and Lo-… and Vanessa," My glare prevented another Loch Ness, "have been fighting a lot in the last week. This is why I'm pretty sure that you're avoiding her."

Tony was looking at me quite intensely and I squirmed a bit, uncomfortable. Was avoiding my best friend?

Yes, I was.

"Oh fine, alright. Yes, I'm avoiding her. That's what you wanted to hear?" I bit out, irritated, my grip clenching around the fork. The metal bit in my palm but I knew it wouldn't leave a mark.

Tony raised an eyebrow and made a show of thoughtfully chewing his mouthful and swallowing it before answering me.

"Not really. Why?"

"Why what?" Okay, I was angry now. "Why am I fighting with her? Because we have different opinions on a subject." The genius looked about to ask something else but I shook my head. "Can't you just don't think about it? It's none of your business, Tony."

I noticed the slip too late… but my upcoming apology for using such a harsh tone – I was polite and did not usually let myself be very aggressive toward people unless they were falling on my nerves or unless they knew me enough to know that they were pushing buttons – was cut by a harsh cough. I swallowed and raised my arms, coughing for about a whole minute before I was able to take a sip of water. "Wrong pipe." I hissed, before focusing on finishing my lasagna.

If Tony had noticed the change in attitude, he did not seem to care about it. In fact, he only shook his head and silently – which worried me a little bit – focused back on his plate.

"Where do you come from, again?" he asked softly and I frowned.

"Quebec. Canada." He frowned and shook his head slowly before glancing at his blue screens. "What?" I asked, worry clear in my voice.

A feeling of dread settled in the bottom of my stomach. Did he think I was lying?

"Uh… Second thoughts are not good. I'm from Quebec, I swear." I took a deep breath. "Promis, juré. Je viens du Québec et je ne suis pas prête de l'oublier.*" I said in French. Tony did not look away from his screens but nodded briefly and pushed a StarkPad beside me. I looked down at it, confused. What the heck was wrong, now?

_Tell Poirier and De Bellefeuille that they are to meet me tomorrow, at my office, at 9 o'clock sharp. Tardiness won't be accepted._

_Nick Fury_

"WHAT?"

* * *

_*French Translations_

_"Promis, juré. Je viens du Québec et je ne suis pas prête de l'oublier."_  -->  _"I swear, I come from the Quebec and I'm not about to forget it."_

* * *

 


	8. 7: Sense of Belonging

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here is chapter 7!
> 
> Warnings for: Angst, possible confusion (I tried to explain a complex concept that sounded clear in my head but isn't quite clear once written down) and quite a lot of swearing.
> 
> Here are the answers to the "How the hell did all of this happen?".
> 
> Well, part of the answers, at least.

**Chapter 7: Sense of Belonging**

I looked at myself in the mirror and gently pushed a forelock away from my eyes. It should do. The black pants, the white blouse with the black vest over it and my hair tied back in a ponytail. It looked professional enough without being uncomfortable. I did not know how I was supposed to dress, in fact, but I had the feeling that professional was far better than casual when you were meeting the Director of SHIELD.

"Lex? You're ready? We have to go."

"Coming, Ness."

Since yesterday, Vanessa and I were suddenly on better terms. The fact that I had suddenly appeared brandishing a StarkPad like a sword and spitting half-swears had made my best friend laugh. Until my explanations had sobered her up and almost made her as angry as me. I  _hated_  to learn important things at the last minute!

I exited my room and couldn't help but feel incredibly uncomfortable. Something had to be wrong. Why the hell would the Director of SHIELD want to talk to us otherwise?

"Are you okay?" Vaness asked me.

"Physically, yes. Psychologically, I'm having an internal turmoil on what the heck is wrong for Director Fury to want to talk to us. I mean… The guy could only ship us back to Quebec if he wanted to. He doesn't  _need_  to talk to us. In fact…" And now, there was a nagging in the back of my mind, something that told me  _why_  he might want to talk to us…

Vanessa pulled me into the elevator with a hiss about not being late and I heard Tony wishing us good luck. I had to talk to him again, after the meeting. Because Tony Stark knew something that he hadn't told Vanessa or me. Something...

"You were saying?" my best friend prompted and I frowned before remembering that I was talking to her.

"I fear the worst, Ness. Something is going on… Okay, obvious, sorry. But… We both dreamt about meeting the Avengers before, didn't we? But they were in a movie! There were actors portraying them! They weren't real! That's the problem! Are we dreaming, are we hallucinating? Or… What was that blue thing, goddamn? Why do I have the feeling that something isn't quite right about the world around us?"

Vanessa groaned. "You think too much but…" She hesitated. "Yeah… Something weird is going on. I thought about it too, believe me, and I don't like it. Something feels… off."

"Apart from the fact that  _magic_ , of all things, exists?" I bit out. I think that was the thing I had the most difficulties to accept. Magic. Real fucking magic. No illusions.

Wait a second…

With a loud sigh, Vanessa pulled me into the sleek black car with tinted windows waiting for us. I spared a brief glance around, too brief to really appreciate the luxury of the car.

"Magic." I said, as if it explained everything. Well… it kind of did. "That blue portal-like thing was magic. Uncontrolled magic since it surely  _wasn't_  supposed to teleport  _us_  of all people into the Avengers Tower."

My best friend frowned and shook her head. "But why us, then? And why New York? Why the Avengers Tower? Why not… let's say the Eiffel Tower in Paris?" Confusion flickered across her face. "And how come the Avengers exist and aren't just… characters?"

I grumbled a few unrelated words and shrugged. "I don't know, Ness. If only I did, it would spare everybody a headache." I dragged a hand through my hair and extended my hand in front of me, opening it fully. "Let's recapitulate. Who?" I taped on my index. "You and me. When?" Middle finger.

"About three weeks ago." Vanessa supplied as I struggled to remember the date. Three weeks… It felt as if it had been three  _months_  ago to me.

"Alright. That's when. What?" Ring finger. "A strange magical portal. Where?" Little finger. "From my apartment in Montreal to the Avengers Tower in New York City. Why?" Thumb.

That was what we didn't know. Why us? Why here? We knew the facts, but not the reason.

"Maybe that's why Fury wants to talk to us." Vanessa said. "Maybe he knows why."

_So does Tony,_ I wanted to point out. But I didn't and kept my mouth shut. Tony hadn't told us anything even if he visibly loved to do a lot of things behind SHIELD's back when he judged that it could be useful to the Avengers and/or himself. And I considered that this particular piece of information was indeed useful and important.

But the whole question was if they – SHIELD, Fury, Tony –  _knew_  why. Did they really? Or did they hope that  _we_  knew?

I snorted softly at the last one. If only… Maybe things would be a lot clearer. I hadn't really thought about it before. We had been dropped in the Tower and had had a bit of time to explain who we were and what we knew about the Avengers. Then, there had been an attack, we had been kidnapped, had woken up in a small dusty cell. We had met Maniac – I barely suppressed a shiver. I hoped the guy was  _dead_  – and been almost used as currency exchange for… a Teleportation Device, if I remembered well. We had been wounded – I resisted the brief urge to check the pink scar on my shoulder – and had been saved by the Avengers. After that had been the recovery time. I had focused on myself and on nothing else than myself.

It was only now that I thought about the oddity of the whole situation.

But the black car came to a stop – the seats were really comfortable, it was a pity to already exit the vehicle – and the chauffeur opened the door on my side. I checked my watch. 8:48. Good. We wouldn't be late… as long as someone directed us to the right office.

We entered the building.

*o*O*o*O*o*

At 9 o'clock sharp, Fury made us enter his office. I thanked the agent who had guided us with a polite sign of head and he answered in the same fashion before turning on his heels.

I suddenly felt a small flicker of panic at the idea that I could be charged for throwing Director Fury to the ground in the Helicarrier but I pushed that stupid thought away and stood as straight as I could, waiting for a sign from the man behind the desk. He was the kind of guy that was hard to miss, with his eye-patch and his good eye analyzing you as if it could see through you, as if he could read you like an open book. I swallowed, silently thanking the skies when he gestured the chairs with a wave of hand.

As soon as we sat, I dropped my hands flat on my thighs to keep the shaking at bay and to refrain from playing in my hair as I usually did whenever I was particularly nervous. Fury's good eye trailed from Vanessa – whose posture was so rigid that she was probably developing a nasty backache – to me and he scribbled something on the thick paper in front of him. That was professional paper and the black fountain pen had probably cost at least forty dollars from the look of it.

"Alexanne De Bellefeuille?" I swallowed and nodded slowly. Somewhat, Director Fury made my name sound as if it was the name of a criminal. Jeez, that guy freaked the hell out of me! His good eye trailed over me and I managed to make my voice work.

"That's my name. Sir." I added the last word, just to trail on the safe side.

"Vanessa Poirier?" And his good eye leaved me alone to observe my friend. She answered a soft "yes, sir" but, invisible to Fury's piercing gaze, her hands clenched into fists on her thighs.

"Those are your real names?" The way he said it ordered no lies. Ness and I exchanged a wary glance. What the heck? Part of my stress morphed into annoyance.

"With all due respect, sir, I believe I know the name I received at my birth." I said, keeping my voice soft and polite. Well, I tried to. Ness leveled a sharp glare on me and I bit the inside of my cheek, my own hands clenching into fists.

"What are the posts you occupy?" the Director asked sharply and confusion swept over me. What was he talking about? Our jobs?

"I'm a translator and an interpreter, sir. I'm currently studying Italian, finishing my BAC in English and French at the university and translating a book from French to English." I answered, swallowing thickly when he glared.

"That was not my question."

I exchanged a confused glance with Vanessa and she spoke up. "Then what do you mean? We are university students, sir."

Fury's glare turned to my best friend, giving me a small respite. "What I mean, miss Poirier, is that I don't understand why you both stubbornly keep on using a pseudo when I ask for your real names."

"What?" Oops. That came out before I could hold it back. Hello, single-eyed glare!

Director Fury suddenly pushed a tablet in front of us – a StarkPad, in fact – and growled menacingly.

"These names don't belong to any citizen living in Quebec in the last fifteen years."

Something heavy settled in my stomach as I urgently pulled the tablet nearer and opened a web page. I quickly typed the name of my personal site, where I published everything related to my job. My qualifications, what I had already translated, etc.

_This web page does not exist._

"Fucking shit." I muttered, briefly forgetting to watch my language. "What the fuck? We don't…  _exist_?!" I furiously typed my full name on Google. Nothing. Nothing concerning me. Some girls that were called Alexanne, some people with the name De Bellefeuille… But no Alexanne De Bellefeuille.

Vanessa's eyes were wide. She snatched the pad from my hands and typed her own name. Pear trees images, some girls with the same name… But no Vanessa Poirier.

Vaness breathed a few cuss words in French and English before dropping the StarkPad on the desk. "It's impossible! We're not crazy!" She grabbed my hand and squeezed until I let out a sound of protest. "We're real! And alive! And not crazy!"

_My name is Alexanne De Bellefeuille. 24 years old, going on 25. Studying languages, from Quebec._

_I'm_ real! _I'm not amnesic. I'm not crazy,_  I told myself firmly.

The blue portal.

I met Fury's permanent glare with a pleading glaze. "Do you have any information on a blue thing that could be described as a portal?" I asked softly, voice breaking in the middle of my sentence. What the fuck was going on? Why the hell didn't we  _exist_?

Fury's glare seemed to loose some of its intensity. "A portal? A blue portal?"

He took back the pad from Vanessa's shaking hands and putted it away, opening a drawer and pulling out a thick folder with the black stamp of SHIELD and a red SECRET stamp. The heavy feeling in my stomach increased and a lump formed in my throat. My hands, which were trembling slightly, seemed to transfer the shaking to my entire body.

Okay. That was panic.

I focused on breathing deeply – it would do me no good if I were to start hyperventilating – while the Director dug in the folder, scanned some papers, putted them back and took another folder out.

"We do have information on an experimental device that can apparently teleport people." said Fury. "It is described here as a swirling circle of untouchable energy colored with various shades of blue. But it is extremely unstable and seems to have no physical limits." He frowned and glared at the papers in his hands. "Excuse me, I need to make a call."

And he stood and went into an adjacent room. The audible click of a lock echoed in the office.

Vanessa was extremely pale. "Alexanne…" she breathed. " _It would be a shame to kill two innocent people for the sake of an experimental device, don't you think?_ " The words – the Boss' words – sent a full body shiver through me as I remembered the pain. "They wanted a  _Teleportation Device_ , remember? That SHIELD has in its possession."

I nodded weakly. Those guys had wanted the thing that had brought us here in the first place. Jesus! As if things weren't already crazy enough!

" _Seems to have no physical limits…_ " I repeated Fury's words. A crazy thought crossed my mind, but it suddenly seemed less crazy than it should have been. It seemed possible.

"Inter-dimension travelling." I whispered. What if it wasn't just an idea that I could use to write a fantasy or science-fiction book? What if it was indeed possible to cross the invisible line between two different worlds? And what if the blue portal was one of the ways to cross this line? But to my sceptical mind, it sounded outrageous.

"You're crazy." Vanessa muttered and while a part of my mind wholly agreed with her about the craziness of the whole notion, the other part just couldn't deny the glaring facts under my nose.

"Maybe I am. But you can't deny that it is possible! Magic exists here, Vanessa! Loki, the Avengers, Asgard, the Tesseract… But we don't. We don't exist here. We don't  _belong_  here. We come from a dimension in which rare are the people who truly believe in magic, in which the Avengers are fiction, in which intelligent robots like JARVIS are but a dream, the dream that research will obtain the knowledge to assemble such robots one day."

Ness sighed but nodded, accepting the facts. Or at least, trying to accept them as they were. "Yeah, okay. This whole…  _inter-dimension_   _travelling_  kind of makes sense." She was pensively looking at me, her tense back relaxing now that Fury was out of the room. "What do you think happened to Loki?" she asked out of the blue and I frowned, taken aback.

"I don't know. At the end of the movie, didn't Thor bring him back to Asgard so that he would face the justice of the All-Father?"

My best friend shrugged and whatever she might have said didn't come out as Fury came back into the room, his expression thunderous. I straightened abruptly, wincing when my back popped painfully. From the corner of my eye, I saw Vaness' posture go rigid again. The Director of SHIELD sat down.

"I just have been informed," And thunderous wasn't the right word to describe his expression, "that the Teleportation Device disappeared for a meager total of ten seconds on the 17th of February. Ten seconds, which is enough time for the device to teleport two girls from another dimension," I wanted to point out the fact that we were both 24 years old women, not  _girls_ , "and drop them in the Avengers Tower." Fury growled a few cuss words in a low voice, then breathed deeply. "While I cannot apologize for the doings of a highly unstable magical artifact which SHIELD's experts are still studying," His good eye traveled from me to Vanessa, "I promise that we will work on sending you back home as soon as possible."

Strangely enough, when he said home, the first image that came to my mind wasn't my cozy apartment in Montreal, but the tall Tower in New York City that housed a team of superheroes.

_The humans' capacity of adaptation,_ I told myself. I had adapted to the fact that the Tower was the safe place where I could eat and sleep, thus becoming  _home_  – or at least, a temporary one – in my mind.

At least, I believed so…

The meeting ended there. We exited Fury's office with soft "Thank you, sir" and, when we came out of the building, the sleek black car that had brought us there was waiting for us.

The ride to the Tower was silent.

*o*O*o*O*o*

Ness and I had split up with a soft "See you later" and I was now hesitating on what to do in front of the elevator in the empty common room. Did I want to do like my best friend and go lock myself in my room? Did I want to go blow off some steam at the gym? Or did I want to find a quiet spot to work on the translations for the documents on the arc reactor?

The elevator's doors opened suddenly… and I found myself face-to-face with Steve Rogers.

I quickly swept my eyes over his body before meeting his surprised gaze. He was wearing a sweat-drenched white t-shirt and sweatpants. A wet towel was swung over his shoulder. But what really struck me – apart from the fact that I had a sweaty Steve Rogers in front of me – were his red-rimmed eyes and the drying tear tracks on his flushed cheeks.

I must have been gaping because he blushed – and the way the red crawled up his neck was quite pretty – and exited the elevator, going past me with a muttered "Sorry". I stopped him with a hand on his arm – I tried to ignore the way the muscle tensed under my fingers – and I felt a sudden  _need_  to help him.

"Steve, what's wrong?" I asked, my voice soft but sounding irritatingly loud in the empty common room.

The super soldier shrugged my hand off. "Nothing is wrong." he answered and anger seized me. I wasn't the most observant person on Earth but, hell, I wasn't blind!

"I never thought I would call Captain America a liar but you are  _lying_." I quickly swept a thumb over his cheek. "Your eyes are red and your cheeks are still damp with salty water. Don't you dare tell me nothing is wrong! I hate it when people lie to me!" I snapped… then harshly bit down on my lip.  _What the fuck, Lex? Who do you think you are?_  "Sorry…" I murmured. "That was out of line and is none of my business." I took a couple of steps back, sheepishly looking down. My thumb was damp. I wiped it on my jeans.

Steve let out a strange noise, something between a sob and a sigh, and I sharply looked up. Tears were welling up in his beautiful eyes and he turned his head when he saw that I was looking. I hesitantly reached out, loosely clasping one big hand in mine and gently pulling him toward the huge couch.

He sat down and clasped his hands together, back shaken by silent sobs. I felt bad for him.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I asked as softly as possible, sitting close but not too much. I didn't want him to feel more uncomfortable. He visibly thought – from the way he was trying to hide his face and his pain – that it was wrong to cry in front of someone else. At my question, he looked up and I felt a painful twinge in my chest at the  _abandon_  shining in his blue eyes.

"I…" He hesitated and I reached out again, taking one of his hands in mine and brushing my thumb over his knuckles. "I feel… alone." He whispered the last word softly, as if he was making a confession. As much as I wanted to, I didn't press for more. I had to let him take it to his own pace. I was here to listen.

"All of my friends from the forties are either old or dead. I'm a man out of time, lost in this world of colorful pictures, loud sounds and bright lights. I feel alone, even if I'm not. I don't belong here but this is where I live now…"

_I don't belong here either, Steve._ But I didn't say it out loud. Instead, I wrapped my arms around his shoulders – the position was, in fact, quite uncomfortable – and tugged down gently.

"You look like you need a hug." I said simply when he looked at me with obvious surprise.

He accepted it. Pressed his face down in the crook of my neck and took the comfort I gave to him.

"You are a man out of time, yes." I thought my words carefully. "But you cannot dwell on the past. It will only bring you pain and a loss of emotional control, like today. I don't say that you must forget those that you lost. It would be a lack of respect to their memory." I gently trailed my fingers in his hair, massaging his scalp.  _I'm doing this for a friend. I'm just offering comfort,_  I told myself. I swallowed and continued: "But you have new friends. People who want to see you happy, that want to help you, spend time with you, watch your back. You are a man out of time but there are people to help you to fit in. To teach you how everything works. You…" I hesitated. How to say that? "You belong here, now." Steve raised his head. His bright eyes met mine. "You don't belong somewhere when you don't have friends. When you feel constantly homesick. When you don't have a place not too far that you can call home."

"Home?" Steve echoed. "Are we talking about a safe place to live or about the place where everything feels right?"

I sighed. "Both, I guess."

We spent about another fifteen minutes on the couch before Steve stood. I tried to ignore the way I missed his warmth immediately. Instead, I answered his small smile with one of my own.

"Thank you." he whispered before turning away.

I swallowed and ducked my head, peering at his golden silhouette through my lashes. "You're welcome. And Steve…" He shot me a small look over his shoulder and I raised my head to meet his eyes. "I won't tell anybody."

He held my gaze and I did not miss the flash of gratitude in his eyes. He murmured "Thank you" again before hurrying to his room.

I curled up on the couch and thought about the expression "Sense of Belonging". What did it truly meant? Was what I had told Steve the real sense of "belonging"?


	9. 8: Settling In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is chapter 8!
> 
> In which we see an old "buddy".
> 
> You know the usual warning for the language. And there might be OCC-ness again.
> 
> ((Now, I'm sorry for the OCC-ness on Steve's part in the previous chapter. Somewhere in my head, it was possible, both from personal experience and because my muse obviously thought so. I'll leave it as it is, though, but I've updated the warnings in consideration. If you do remark OCC-ness that really does not fit with the story and/or the characters, please notice me so that I can update the warnings appropriately. Thanks for your understanding.))

**Chapter 8: Settling In**

I woke up early. The glowing numbers on the digital clock made me blink in utter confusion for a short moment.

_5:41_

Seriously?

What was I doing up at five forty in the morning? Sure, I had crashed in my bed pretty early last night – around ten, in fact – but I had been so tired! And I usually slept longer, no? I quickly made some maths in my head. Seven and a half hours of sleep. No. It was a usual number.

I huffed and turned my back to the clock, closing my eyes and chasing after my latest dreams in the hopes of going back to sleep. Tough luck. The dream hid in the dark corners of my subconscious and I could feel my mind kicking into high-drive.

Taken by a sudden urge to move – I would not sleep anymore, that was for sure – and do something useful, I dragged my lazy sleep-dazed body out of the warm bed. A long stretch had my back popping in all the good places and a happy moan escaped me.

I had taken a shower yesterday, so I was out of my room fifteen minutes later. Too lazy to put on some socks, I padded bare-footed to the elevator almost noiselessly. I had always prided myself on my light-footing and it was handy when I didn't want to wake someone – say Vanessa – who could be really cranky when woken up before nine.

I exited the elevator in the Avengers' common room and quickly went to the kitchen. I wanted to eat a little something, maybe take an early coffee, then work on…

Oh.

The rising sun was pouring bright light into the room and my eyes flickered to the coffee maker, then back to the window. The sky was clear, no clouds visible anywhere, and upon opening the window, I noticed that while cool, the air would be comfortable if I took a vest.

Maybe I could go outside for a little while…

Abandoning the idea of coffee for now, I grabbed the first fruit that fell under my hand – a green apple – and bit into it, a light grimace appearing on my face at the sour taste. I then hurried back to the elevator. I needed a pair of running shoes and a vest.

*o*O*o*O*o*

The air was colder than what I had expected. But after a quick run that left me gasping for breath – I had next to no endurance, seriously – I was positively warmed up. I dug my hands in the pockets of the grey sweat-shirt I wore and looked around, breathing in the smells of the already awake city of New York and looking around with sharp curiosity.

It was the first time I was actually taking the time to  _look_. Not just walk with no precise purpose other than cool my mind. I was looking, observing, keeping in mind some visual references to use when I would go back to the Tower.

I entered a park and felt as if I had stepped into another world. It was… different. A shock of nature – kind of, if I did not consider the pavements and other signs of humanity – in the middle of a world of iron and cement.

Moved by a feeling of longing and quiet sadness, I stepped away from the path and walked to a tree, sitting down against it. I brought my knees up against my chest and wrapped my arms around my legs, shooting a thoughtful gaze around the park.

It looked like any other park. Like that park I often went to when I wanted to go outside, back in Montreal. Back at home.

Home.

It was so far, right now. Not only kilometers away. In another dimension. One I couldn't touch anymore because of that damn blue portal. Fury had promised he would send us back but he had told us that they couldn't control the thing.

My hope of ever seeing my apartment again was faint.

And how would Vanessa and I settle down, now? Apart from Tony who, I think, had gotten his hands on information he shouldn't know about, the Avengers had probably no clue that Ness and I didn't belong here. They didn't know that we couldn't go back to Quebec. They didn't know that the Tower was the only place that we could consider as  _home_ , right now.

Only Tony did.

And he hadn't told them. Nor had we.

Vanessa had been strangely silent since we had come back and I had been particularly antisocial. The Avengers knew that something had happened and that we had met with Fury, of course they did. They just didn't know  _what_  exactly had happened.

And I wasn't about to tell them.

I must have nodded off because I was brought back to reality by hands on my shoulders gently shaking me awake.

"Hey."

I blinked my eyes open and met startling blue eyes, deep and beautiful. It was a guy. And to go well with his nice eyes, he had a nice face too. "Hey." I croaked back, letting a lazy smile appear on my lips.

A violent shudder chased the last traces of sleep away and I suddenly noticed that I was quite cold. My teeth began to chatter stupidly and I almost bit my own tongue.

I was outside. In March. With only a sweat-shirt, jeans and a pair of running shoes to protect me from the bite of the cold.

Memories of the unholy hour I had woken up to came back to me and I shook my head before looking back into the blue eyes… and finally recognizing who was crouching in front of me.

Steve.

"What…" I wanted to say more but another violent shiver made me tremble all over and my chattering teeth messed up every attempt at formulating an intelligent sentence.

His warm hands drifted down my arms and began to rub them vigorously. "Why are you outside so early and, of all things, sleeping in the middle of a park?" Steve asked. His hands left my arms and started rubbing circles into my stiff back, which I had unglued from the tree bark. I hissed in displeasure at the sharp sting of pain the contact caused but leaned into it. Warmth felt good. I blew lightly on my fingertips, hoping to bring back some colour in my white fingers. Not that they usually were very coloured – my skin rarely went passed the 'pale sun-kissed skin resulting in freckles' stage.

"I woke up incredibly early for my usual standards and was not able to go back to sleep. And the clear sky and bright sunshine were beckoning me outside. Guess I forgot that sleeping outside when it's kind of cold is not a good idea." I managed to explain between loud chatters of teeth. I checked my watch. "And really, I shouldn't be sick. I slept for max fifteen uncomfortable minutes."

I stood slowly, accepting Steve's hand, and stretched, wincing when a muscle shifted in my stiff back.

"Note to self: Trees do not make good backrests." I muttered, reaching behind me to press fingers into the middle of my back.  _Ouch_. I echoed the thought involuntarily with a thin whine of discomfort.

"Do you need help with that?"

I blinked and I must not have been completely awake because I wasn't exactly sure of what he was asking.

_When in doubt, answer yes or no._

"Uh… yeah?"

I jumped a little when Steve reached around me – and  _oh!_  His warmth was nice – to press gently into the sore muscles. I melted into him, absently letting out a noise that could be described as a purr. He chuckled at that, a deep chuckle that made his chest vibrate pleasantly under my cheek.

A couple walking down the path smiled at us and sudden warmth filled my cheeks at the picture we were giving.  _We aren't… together… I mean… We aren't! You're wrong! Don't look at us as if we were… I mean… I would like to, but… Oh crap._

I shifted uneasily and Steve released me. I tried to stomp on the small part of myself that was whining at the lack of his arms around me. As soon as he took a few steps back, my teeth began to chatter stupidly again and I tried to keep my mouth shut, annoyed. "Come, we'll go back to the Tower. You're freezing." the super soldier said gently and I nodded once before forcing my stiff body into movement. A couple of jumps on the spot brought back some warmth into my thighs, followed closely by the painful pins and needles of circulation into the numb parts.

"Yeah, let's go. I need coffee." I muttered somewhat grumpily. "Don't run too fast though. I have next to no endurance and I won't be able to keep up." I added.

"You can work on that, you know." Steve said gently, allowing me to set the pace. I adopted a brisk one that allowed my legs to cover as much distance as they could when I was walking. I was really cold and my fingers were so stiff that closing my hands was painful.

I sighed loudly and shook my head. "I could work on that, but I'm a lazy girl. I don't like to run. To be truthful, if I have to do a sport, I prefer archery."

He laughed. A deep, very nice laugh. I stubbornly ignored the shot of  _want_  that went through me. "I'm sure Clint will be happy to hear that. Archery is not exactly my kind of thing… Nor is it Tony's or Bruce's. And well, you can picture what would happen to a man-made bow in Thor's hands."

I grimaced. I wouldn't even  _imagine_  allowing Thor to use a bow.

We passed by a coffee shop and I salivated when I caught the delicious smell of fresh coffee and… was I smelling cinnamon rolls?

My pace slowed and I curiously peered inside. Yes! Cinnamon rolls! Wonderful, freshly baked, still hot cinnamon rolls.

"Just give me a sec'…" I muttered to Steve before entering the coffee shop.

*o*O*o*O*o*

I was happily licking the sugar of my cinnamon roll off my fingers when Vanessa entered the kitchen, still in her pyjamas and her hair only looking as what could be described as a mess. I smiled briefly. She looked as if she belonged here. Looked as if she was settling in quite well. She blinked at me, taking in the fact that I was dressed, that I had just taken a visibly bought cup of coffee in my hand and that I was maybe a bit too cheerful for her tastes at… well, ten in the morning.

"Hey Nessie!" I called brightly, pushing a cinnamon roll toward her and pointing the coffee pot maker. "That's for you and if you want some coffee…"

She grimaced and muttered: "I'll take the cinnamon roll but you know what I think of coffee."

I nodded and smirked. "There's orange juice in the fridge."

The hand that had been itching toward the cinnamon roll stopped midway and Vanessa pulled it back and turned to the fridge. I snorted and she grumbled something back.

"You're the last one up, by the way." I told her. "Tony passed by to take a cup of coffee twenty minutes ago."

He had also blessed me for making coffee but that was a detail.

"Who cares whether I'm the last up or not?"

I raised my hands. "Hey, no need to get defensive, Ness! I was only commenting." She turned a tired look on me and I cocked my head. "You didn't sleep well, I gather?"

She rolled her eyes at that and shrugged. Okay… When Vanessa wasn't talkative, it was better to just let her be. I knew how to get a hint and I stood with a teasing smile. I was in a good mood – strange as it might be – and I decided to just let myself be. Anyway, the Avengers didn't judge me for being… well, me.

"Alright, then! While you're being all grumpy and eating your breakfast, I'll go to the gym." I walked to the elevator. "See you later!"

"I'm not grumpy!" Vanessa exclaimed as the elevator's doors closed. Yeah, sure, wasn't grumpy at all.

*o*O*o*O*o*

Gently rubbing the side of my head, I glared at the punching bag from where I was sitting on the floor. I had given it a hell of a good hit with my leg and it had hit me right back, sending me flying down on my ass about three feet backward.

"Now, that was a nasty one, you bugger." I muttered, standing on shaky legs. There was a smart pain in my leg and I stretched it, grimacing in pain until it popped. I gingerly touched the side of my head again; the sting in my temple reminded me too much of the sting of a cut. No blood though. Only pain because I was too caught up in my glorious move to remember the punching bag coming back. Which was really stupid since I was getting accustomed to go punch that same bag almost each day around the same hour.

I thought about it. Did that mean that I was settling in?

Glancing once again at the now-offending object, I sighed and dragged a hand through my forelocks. My forehead was all sweaty. I wiped my hand on my pants, trying to get rid of the wet feeling.

Well, no more punching for today.

I settled on doing some stretches while waiting for my heartbeat to come down from its high. Water could wait until I could breathe through my nose properly again.

"Hey, Tiger!"

"Holy shit!" I spun on one foot, surprised by the totally unexpected shout. Surprisingly, I didn't lose my footing and stayed upright after my crazy spin. Clint raised an eyebrow and I shrugged helplessly. It was easy to surprise me if you managed to sneak on me. And when I was taken unawares, I often became more aggressive than frightened. I just  _hated_  to be taken by surprise!

"Don't you dare sneak up on me, freaking shit!" I snapped, breathing deeply. "I just… Don't do that. Serious."

The archer cocked his head and smirked. "I gave you quite a fright, eh?"

I bit my lip. Even if it was true, it stung anyway to have been so easily caught unawares. "Yeah. Didn't hear you come in. Anyway." I shrugged again. "What was the reason for you to sneak up on me? I hope you weren't aiming to give me a heart attack!"

"Uh, no. Not yet." At my eyes' widening, he snickered. "Oh, calm down, Tiger. I won't give you a heart attack. Cap is looking for you."

My eyebrows shot up in my hairline. Why did Steve want to see  _me_? I repeated the question aloud, to which Hawkeye answered with a quick "Dunno".

Oh heck! I couldn't exactly say no, now could I?

"Alright. Show me the way."

*o*O*o*O*o*

SHIELD had captured a guy from the organisation trying to get the freaky portal-like teleportation device. And Steve wanted to know if Ness and I recognized him.

My answer was a quick 'hell, yes!' because I recognized the man indeed.

Maniac.

Who sneered at me and gave Vanessa a flirty smile when he saw us.

I backed off, too fast to look subtle about it. A glint of cruelty appeared in the guy's eyes.

"Well, well, well! Look who we've got here! My lovely princess and her tiger! Easy, easy, little kittypet!" he cooed mockingly when I shivered. "You remember me?"

I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest, trying to look bored as my hands clenched into my biceps. "Hard to forget such an ass." I shot right back, putting as much disdain and attitude as I could behind it. Strong fiery emotions, such as anger, I could deal easier with than the now instinctive fear I harbored toward that dick.

"I would prefer not to!" Vanessa spat in answer.

One of the four agents of SHIELD present in the room asked if we knew Maniac's name, to which we both answered that we didn't.

"Unless his real name is Maniac, of course." I added softly, but not softly enough since everybody heard me anyway.

At that, the idiot laughed. His laughter was displeasing. Not only to hear but it was really falling on my nerves that he was acting so… freely even if he was in SHIELD's hands! Could he snap out of his craziness and take a look at  _reality_? Vanessa didn't love him – I swear she did in fact  _hate_  him – and he was far from having the upper hand right now.

Steve was standing beside Tony, who himself was slouching against the door. He glanced my way briefly, but didn't say anything. Tony, on the other hand…

"Maniac?"

I sighed. "He never listens to what he's told unless it's a direct order from his boss or just plainly doesn't care about it. And he's a maniac about weapons and  _accidental_  touches on the trigger and is, I swear, completely nuts and blah, blah, blah. He's a fucking asshole, okay? And why am I even justifying myself when the problem in the room is him?"

Tony's lips quirked up momentarily at that and Ness glared at said 'problem'.

The agents of SHIELD nodded. "You may depart." one of them said. "Thank you."

With a quick – and hopefully polite – nod toward the agents, I marched straight to the door, stopping to shoot a look over my shoulder when Vanessa didn't follow me right away. She was glaring darkly at Maniac, who was smirking back arrogantly.

The resounding slap she gave him across the face didn't surprise me one bit. I smiled widely and congratulated my best friend instead, inviting her to follow me outside with a large exaggerated wave of my hand.

Tony winked as we passed by and muttered something along the lines of "he'll be numbing his ass for a good while, don't worry" before allowing the door to close behind us.

"I just wish he was dead!" Nessa suddenly snapped. "I just hit him! He only looked surprised for two seconds before looking at me with his creepy smile!"

I patted her back but she shied away from me. Ness never was too fond of contact and I guessed that now really wasn't the good moment. I subtly backed away a little bit, stepping out of her bubble's  _large_  bounds.

"He's a really fucking creeper! They better lock him away!"

I nodded slowly. I felt the same way. That guy freaked me out. "I know, Vanessa. Trust me, I know." I breathed deeply. Then, a little spark of malice lit up in me as we took the direction of the closest elevator. "Oh, Nessie. If we ever have to see his ugly face again, next time…" I reached out to pat her shoulder, stopped midway when I remembered her anti-contact mood, and smirked instead.

"I hope we never have to see his face again." my best friend muttered venomously.

I snorted. "Me too, trust me. But if it ever happens… Next time, don't slap him. Close you fist and punch him. That might get a reaction."

Vanessa nodded grimly and I guessed that she regretted not having thought of it before we exited the room.

We entered the elevator and I punched the button for the main floor. "Let's go back…"  _Home_  almost came out but I bit my tongue and said "to the Tower" instead.

I don't know if Ness noticed my slip…


	10. 9: Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 9!
> 
> More of a filler chapter than anything else, but it belongs there.
> 
> Fluffy warm chapter, with a little bit of angst and some grumpying on Alexanne's part.

**Chapter 9: Friends**

Bored, I trailed my fingers over the laptop's keyboard. I was in one of those moods that could only be described as… well, brooding. And brooding meant that leaving me alone was the best thing that someone could do.

Two more weeks had gone by, so fast yet so slow. Things had somewhat settled down and if Fury's short – and not very detailed – message was anything to go by, Ness and I weren't going home anytime soon.

Giving up the idea of trying to write something, I reached out for my coffee cup and took a cautious sip. It was barely warm anymore and I putted it down with a sigh, feeling far too lazy to get up from the couch and reheat it in the microwave.

Instead, I putted the laptop on the coffee table, closed my eyes and basked in the silence, emptying my mind slowly. For the first time in a long time – Weeks? Days? I wasn't sure – I was completely and utterly alone. And only the barely-there buzz of Tony's costly appliances was disturbing my practically silent environment.

Talking about Tony… I probably wouldn't see him for a while since he was in his workshop, as usual.

Bruce was in his lab, working on God knows what kind of chemistry mix. As long as there wasn't an explosion, I guess everything would be alright.

Clint and Natasha were in the gym, comparing their strengths and abilities and, unsurprisingly, sparring. They might come up before lunch but I doubted it.

Thor had gone back to Asgard for something that had to do with Loki. We wouldn't see him for a while.

As for Vanessa, she was locked in her bedroom, brooding about things I could only guess about since she didn't want to tell me what was on her mind. I didn't push, just accepted the facts as they were. She would avoid me anyway.

And Steve…

I opened my eyes and let out a deep weary sigh.

Now, I'd be lying to myself if I didn't admit that I was dealing with a lot of feelings when it came to Steve Rogers. And I'm not talking about Captain America, the USA's perfect golden boy, the superhero a lot of girls secretly pictured as their charming prince. I'm talking about the man under the suit, the man with the forces and weaknesses, the man who – though physically enhanced by a super serum – was still human. For that man I felt such turmoil. And I held to that distinction fiercely, if only to prove myself that I wasn't having a fan girl's crush over the guy I dreamed about some nights.

And yet, I was slowly sinking in such dreams. More than once I had caught myself starring at muscled arms, plump pink lips or silky-looking golden hair. More than once I had to remind myself to focus on what Steve was saying instead of letting myself get lost in the blue depths of his bright eyes. The only thing missing was swooning.

"And here I am, poetically thinking like a fucking Disney princess!" I snapped aloud, disgusted with myself.

"A Disney princess?"

I let out a shriek and jumped on my feet, arms crossed protectively in front of my face. I didn't even relax when I recognised what I had thought previously as a threat.

"Anthony Stark, goddamn, don't sneak up on me! Jesus…" I growled, venomously muttering various curses under my breath until my heartbeat began to slow down. "What are you doing upstairs? It's not even lunchtime!" Inwardly, I cursed him to hell and back for disturbing my peace.

He raised his hands. "Hey, it's my Tower! I can be wherever I want whenever I want!" Tony protested.

My shoulders slumped and I let my arms fall by my sides limply. "True." I admitted, a bit of shame washing over me. "Doesn't explain what brought you out of your workshop at…" I glanced at my watch. "Eleven seventeen in the morning."

The man shrugged. "I've finished what I was doing. And I've missed breakfast."

I rolled my eyes and dropped on the couch, scooting to the left when Tony sat down beside me. I glanced suspiciously at him from under my eyelashes. What did he want from me?

"A Disney princess?"

I groaned and brought my knees up to hide my face. "Drop it. Forget I ever said that aloud, okay?"

Stark, damn him, smirked deviously. "Why should I when I have fun picturing you in Snow White's dress?"

Of all things! "Wipe that picture from your mind!" I snapped. "It's won't ever, ever,  _ever_  happen, understood? Not even at Halloween." I added sourly.

Once again, Tony raised his hands in a peaceful gesture. "Whoa, calm down here, Tiger. It was a joke!"

For once, thankfully, I didn't flinch at the nickname. Maybe it came with the fact that Clint kept using it each time he deemed it appropriate for the situation… Which happened incredibly often.

Still, grumpily, I snorted. "A good joke is one that everybody thinks it funny." I muttered.

Tony gave me a mock pout. "Aw, come on Alexanne! You can't say it isn't at least a little funny?"

I grimaced. A dress in only the primary colors and a little bow in the hair had never seemed like a pretty thing to wear to me. "Not for me, thanks." I finally answered, scowling when Tony accentuated his pout, transforming it into a kicked puppy look. I was about to snap at him again, but a picture suddenly went through my mind and my face split in a wide grin instead. "Now… If  _you_  were the one wearing the dress…"

He actually thought about it before shaking his head. "Nope. Not my colors."

I allowed myself to laugh a little, to which Tony smiled. "Ha! Gotcha!" he exclaimed, giving me a smug look when I raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

"Gotcha?" I repeated.

"I got you to wipe that grumpy look from your face, didn't I?"

I tried to fight down a smile, tried to keep a neutral expression. I failed miserably when, still looking awfully too smug for my liking, Tony mused aloud: "Now, I wonder how Clint would look in Cinderella's dress…"

I huffed, then giggled. "Awful."

Believe it or not, we actually wondered about all of us in disguised as various princesses until lunchtime.

*o*O*o*O*o*

In a total opposition to my mood this morning, I was now positively giddy, high on happiness and feeling so warm inside that the cool breeze was a welcomed caress on my flushed cheeks.

Clint smiled brightly and caught me before I lost feet, dizzy from vertigo, pure relief and utter happiness. I might have cared about how I looked with my pale face and my goofy smile if I hadn't been feeling so great.

"Whoa there, Tiger! Had I known that telling you that you were a friend would make you react like this, I would have waited until we were back inside the Tower!" Clint said, his strong hands on my shoulders steering me away from the building's edge.

The reminder of the danger sobered me up quickly and I was shaken by a slight shiver.

Clint had brought me up as an answer to my teasing about making nests on top of city buildings. But once at the top of the Tower, I had suffered a bout of vertigo that had driven all teasing thoughts from my mind. Clint, bless him, hadn't made fun of my sudden weakness, instead remarking aloud how tiny the people looked from so high.

Curiosity had gotten the better of me and I had cautiously approached the edge of the roof to peer down, grasping at Clint's arm none too gently when the world blurred at the edges of my vision.

Then, for a short moment, vertigo had left me as I had contemplated how small we, humans, were. How easily we could die for various reasons, by our own hand or as a result of something we could not control. How short our lives were when you thought of the immensity of the universe. I could understand a little bit why Gods would look down at us and consider us weak.

We weren't  _weak_  but how fragile we were!

"Hey, are you okay Alexanne?" Clint had asked, breaking through my brooding thoughts.

I had blinked. So many people, minding their own business, living their own lives. Each day, most of them went to work or to school. At the end of each day, they went home or hoped that they could.

Home…

"Lex?"

"I just… suddenly feel so far from home." I had gestured the people down in the street. "They go home each day. And we… we might never go home. We're strangers here, you know?" I explained softly.

Clint had frowned. "We?"

I had allowed myself to give him a disbelieving look and had gently pointed out: "Yeah, we; Vanessa and I."

He had offered me a small sheepish smile… before his expression had morphed back into a frown. "Strangers? You feel like strangers?" At my shrug, Clint had grabbed my arm and squeezed. "Alexanne! You and Vanessa might not be part of the team", and ouch, that had stung more than I wanted to admit, "but you're our friends! Not strangers!"

I had felt a little flower of warmth bloom in my chest at the word "friends". Had I heard him right?

My dumbfounded silence had displeased him. "You know that you're welcomed here right?"

I had bitten my lip. "Fury has made us feel as if we are… well, burdens."

Clint had shaken his head. "Fury is Fury. Acts like a real bastard sometimes. Inexplicable events make him sweat. And the guy has such a temper!" He had shivered mockingly before squeezing my arm again. "You and Vanessa are our friends, Lex. And if Tony hasn't kicked you out yet, it's either because you're useful or because you're both welcomed here."

Relief and happiness had washed over me, so strongly that I had swayed under the onslaught. Which had caused vertigo to slam back into me, resulting in Clint's quick decision to steer me away from the edge of the Tower's roof.

Putting pressure on my shoulders, the archer forced me to sit down. He then crouched before me and ordered softly:

"Deep breaths."

I noticed my violent shivers, due to both vertigo and the cold seeping through my clothes. I took a couple of deep breaths in an attempt to get over the dizziness of heights, shaking my head, frustrated, when my teeth began to chatter together instead.

Clint pulled me up and removed the leather jacket he was wearing to drop it on my shoulders. I was about to open my mouth to protest – I was wearing a vest too! He didn't need to catch a cold for me, thank you! – but was cut shot by the clearly audible chatter of my teeth, which was becoming quite annoying.

"Let's go back inside." Clint proposed, having apparently forgotten – or acting as if he had – the reason why we had come up here in the first place.

"S-s-sure!" I managed to say, clenching my ghost-white hands in the hems of the leather jacket and trying to wrap myself as tight as possible in it. But the residual warmth was not enough to stop my cold shivers.

In fact, my teeth were still chattering together when we entered the common room. I stood awkwardly beside the elevator for a while, not sure about what to do. Clint had quickly disappeared with a muttered "Coming back", forgetting his jacket which I still held to tightly. I finally decided to at least clear the elevator, kicking off my shoes – I would pick them up later – and curling on myself into the cushions of the couch.

It took a while for my shivers to subside. But once they did, I was sufficiently comfortable and relaxed to nod off.

*o*O*o*O*o*

_Warm… Comfort… Comfy cozy cloud… Hmm… A little hungry though. Bah, later. Not important for now… Nose in cloth… Hmm… Thought the couch was made of leather… Pillow? No, smells weird… Like electricity and heavy summer days, right before a storm… Wait, what? We're not even in April yet!_

I sat up quickly, staring in utter incomprehension at the red cloth covering me. What…

Someone laughed and my head shot up. Vanessa gave me a teasing smile.

"Slept well?" she asked, leaning back in the armchair she was occupying.

"How long did I sleep?" I asked instead of answering. I grabbed the red cloth, understanding that it was, in fact, a cloak. And I only knew one Avenger who had such a cloak.

"Thor is here?"

Nessa nodded, staring at the Asgardian piece of clothing. "Yes, he is. Loki apparently managed to escape." I cocked my head as I listened absently to what she was saying. Something sounded… off, in my friend's voice. She was keeping her emotions bottled up and keeping her whole attitude and posture neutral.

I then understood  _what_  she had said.

"Loki escaped?" I repeated. Vanessa nodded again and, wow, I had to give the God of Mischief some credit.

"Does Thor know where he's hiding?"

My best friend shook her head, hesitated. "He's on Earth but  _where_  is the question." Then, apparently thinking that the subject was closed, Ness analysed me slowly. "You have a new jacket?"

I looked down. I still had Clint's jacket. Thank God, I had never seen rumpled leather. To my friend's question, I shook my head. "I wish." I loved leather but, hey, it did cost some money. "But this is Clint's."

"Clint's." Vanessa repeated and I felt a spark of annoyance, which I quickly swallowed down. "Why do you have Clint's leather jacket?"

I sighed. "Jeez, Nessie, why don't you just ask him?"

"I'm asking you."

I muttered a curse, then summarized what had happened after lunch, after she had gone back to her room to doodle. I omitted the brooding and the vertigo parts. But I told Vanessa what Clint had said about us being friends, about us being welcomed here.

Vanessa didn't say anything but I think that the way he posture relaxed slightly meant that she was as relieved as I was. I hadn't been the only one stressing over the fact that we would have to settle down. I hadn't been the only one seriously doubting that SHIELD could force the Teleportation Device to obey their will. And I hadn't been the only one feeling as if we were burdens for the Avengers.

I broke the silence that had settled between us. "Why do I have Thor's cloak?"

"You were shivering in your sleep. When Thor came in, he noticed it. He touched your hand and declared that you were freezing and that you were probably sick. He decided to let you borrow his cloak to keep you warm since, in his opinion, you were " _shaking like a little leaf caught in a strong wind_ "."

Sick!? I had bad blood flow in my hands and feet – thus making them uncomfortably cold more often than not – but I wasn't sick! "I suffer the curse of cold hands and cold feet but I'm not sick." I said. As if to deny my claim, my nose began to itch and I sneezed once, twice, then a third time.

I scowled at Vanessa's snort. "You might have caught a cold."

"I might have not." I shot back.

"Am I interrupting something?" And wow, Clint had such timing!

"Nothing." Vanessa and I answered at the same time, exchanging a challenging look.

Clint looked at both of us. "You're sure you aren't sisters?"

Ness shook her head and I said: "Nope. We don't have the same parents." And I had to swallow down a lump at the thought of my family. Quickly, I pushed the thought away and qualified it as taboo thinking. It would only make me miserable and I couldn't – wouldn't – let such thoughts poison my life. It wasn't as if we were going home anytime soon, now were we?

Clint didn't notice my brief emotional struggle, instead shrugging. "Well, you sure act as if you were." Then, looking at me, he cocked his head. "Is that Thor's cloak?" the archer asked and my eyes fell on the piece of clothing I still held.

"Uh… yeah." I stood and let it pool on the couch before shrugging off the leather jacket and handing it to its owner. "And I believe that's yours. Thanks for sharing."

Clint shrugged. "No prob."

A booming voice took me by surprise. "Ah, Alexanne! I see that you are awake!"

I had to find a warning system to put on the guy before he traumatized someone.

"Hey Thor!" I answered with a smile, picking up the cloak and handing it to him. "Thank you for the blanket."

But instead of taking it back, Thor gently grasped my small hands in his huge ones. He frowned. "You still are very cold."

I opened my mouth to explain about bad blood flow and the fact that it was normal when Thor picked his cloak and draped it over my shoulders.

It was _huge_! I felt as if I was drowning in heavy red fabric. And I was small enough that the hem was dragging on the floor. Vanessa began to giggle and I shot her a small glare. I probably looked ridiculous.

"Uh… Thor? It's a bit too big for me…"

The God smiled brightly. "It is true that you are short, my friend. But this will keep you warm and I do not need it at the present moment."

"But…"

I could not find any argument to convince him otherwise and I shut my mouth.

Clint patted my shoulder. "You're cute, Lexy! You look like a little girl trying on Daddy's coat."

I spluttered in indignation. "First, I'm not a little girl! Second, don't call me Lexy!"

A flash.

Tony – popping in from God knows where – was holding a camera and snickering. "You're trying to find a costume, Lex? Didn't know that Thunderess was your kind of disguise."

Vanessa's giggles became deep-throated laughter.

I groaned, pressing my face in my hands.

"Do not worry, Little Leaf. Though it is too big for you, my cloak suits you rather well." Thor tried to comfort me, before letting out a chuckle when I gave him my best kicked puppy look.

I couldn't hold back a small laugh either.

They're here to make you go crazy and make fun of you but give you help and comfort you in the difficult moments. That's what friends are for.

And heck, they could laugh if they wanted. It felt good to be surrounded by friends.


	11. 10: Training

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is chapter 10!
> 
> In which there is - obviously - some training, staring and mooning and... well, maybe some people should check the back of their shirts for weird messages.

**Chapter 10: Training**

I was waiting patiently, slowly fingering the synthetic fletching of an arrow. Sure, I could have done something better than playing with arrows and stretching alone in the gym like accompanying Vanessa, who was off to give a hand to a hard-pressed Pepper Potts after having finally snapped. She was bored, she wanted to work. Tony had referred her and had said that it might keep Miss Potts out of his hair for a while.

But, call it laziness if you want, I  _didn't_  want to dig through piles of urgent papers, no matter how much I loved the material.

And if  _I_  so desperately wanted to work, there were all those lovingly complex documents that Tony had given me to translate.

" _Instead,"_  I mused as I weighted the arrow delicately balanced on the tip of my fingers,  _"I'm waiting for Clint so that he can teach me how to shoot properly. Who would have thought this? Alexanne De Bellefeuille, interested in another sport beside swimming."_

"You're waiting for someone?"

While I had been waiting for a voice to break through the silence, I wasn't ready for  _this_  one.

I turned, closing my hand around the arrow once more. "Oh, Steve!" I smiled, tried to fight down the heat creeping in my cheeks. Not that I blushed a lot but still… "Yeah, I'm waiting for Clint. Did you see him?" I clasped my hands together behind my back, still holding the arrow lightly, and cocked my head.

Ten seconds passed and worry crept upon me. "Steve?"

He seemed to snap back to the present and blushed lightly, pink tinting his cheeks. It was really endearing. "Sorry. What did you say?"

I opened my mouth to repeat, then decided against it. "Are you okay?" I asked instead.

Steve smiled. "Yes, I am." he answered briefly before his eyes flickered down to the tape he was holding in his hands.

I tensed, wondering if he was lying.

"Hey! Careful with that, Tiger!"

Have I mentioned that Clint had such a  _wonderful_  timing?

I slacked the grip I had on the arrow and let Clint pluck it from my fingers. "Sorry. I wasn't trying to break it." I mumbled, shooting a small glance toward Steve from under my lashes.

My mouth went dry.

Holy shit!

Those muscles rolling powerfully under his shirt as he wrapped tape around his hands and gave a testing punch to his personal reinforced bag made my mind run wild for a short moment.

"Lex, you're staring." Clint said with a grin, the hand waving in front of my face snapping out of my blown thoughts.

My answer was quick. "I wasn't staring, I was thinking." Which was partly true since I had indeed been thinking. What I had been thinking about… Well, that was none of Clint's business.

"Can you teach me?" I asked the archer, pointing the arrow he held. I was totally changing the subject but hey! I wasn't trying subtlety.

He smiled warmly. "Sure." I cocked my head when his smile morphed into a smirk. "Think you're for the challenge of having Hawkeye as your teacher, Tiger?"

I rolled my eyes and snorted. "Guess I won't know if I chicken out. I'm in, Hawk. I won't best you but I'll become good, just watch me!"

"Can't wait to see that." And if that wasn't a challenge…  _Fine, Hawk. Teach me and we'll see how good I'll become_.

Clint looked pleased by my challenging glare. "That's one of the things I like about you and Vanessa. You got some spirit." He nodded slowly to himself, then smiled again. "Let's get you a good practice bow. I'll talk Tony into making one suited for you. It might not be the bow that makes the archer but it sure helps." He then patted my head, to which I scowled. "And you're a bit short for most of the bows we have here."

"Five foot two of body and one foot of temper. I'm not small!" Okay, I was. I still hated to be reminded of it. And the fact that I couldn't wear heels higher than three inches – unless I wanted to either twist an ankle or walk as graciously as a penguin – didn't help my short stature.

Clint laughed. "I like that one. 'One foot of temper'…" He smirked, then headed to where the Avengers kept the practice weapons. He didn't see the half-glare I focused on his back.

Steve did, though, if the snort of laughter coming from his side of the gym was anything to go by. I glanced his way… and swallowed thickly when I saw the way his thin white shirt clung to his sweaty back.

Holy crap, but I was so screwed!

A bow gently tapping the side of my head made me spin around and give Clint a dark look. "You can just hand it to me, you know!" I snapped, to which the archer merely raised an eyebrow.

"You were staring. Again."

I wanted to deny it, say that I was thinking  _again_. Instead, I shrugged and accepted the truth as it was. I had been staring. "So what?" I grumbled, taking the bow and striding toward the targets.

Clint snorted but wisely didn't answer.

*o*O*o*O*o*

The practice had been both a success – for my point of view – and a source of endless frustration. Even if Clint had been incredibly patient, I think that two full hours of bow lessons and of rectifying my position  _every time_  I aimed was enough for one day.

On his way out of the gymnasium, Clint had literally dumped me on Steve with a "Why don't you teach her how to pack a punch properly" and had left us gaping after him.

And that was why I was currently letting Steve wrap tape around my hands. I didn't like the feeling of the tape on the sensitive skin of my hands but if I focused on the way Steve was gently holding them, it wasn't  _so_  bad.

It was quite nice, in fact.

"Is it necessary?" I asked anyway when Steve let my hands go. I opened and closed them into fists, wincing at the feeling of pulled skin. It  _really_  was a weird sensation.

"It helps to protect your hands when you're not using gloves." Steve looked at me curiously. "You already used the punching bag before, didn't you?" At my short nod, he asked: "What did you use to protect your hands?"

I understood that my previous punching sessions had been made a lot more painful by my obliviousness. "Uh… Nothing? I ended up with bruised knuckles since there were no gloves and I hadn't thought about tape…" I absently rubbed said knuckles, searching for a phantom pain that wasn't there anymore since my knuckles had had time to heal since my last session with the punching bag.

Again – and I stomped mercilessly on the flicker of pleasure that lit up inside of me – Steve grasped my hands and peered at them intensely, palpating them through the tape. "You're resilient." He brushed my knuckles with his thumb, gently.

I licked my lips and tried – failed – to hide a small smirk. "Not really. They just had time to heal. Vanessa almost bit my head off the first time she saw my ripped knuckles."

Steve let out a soft amused snort, which I answered with a giggle.

I would have been happy to stay like this, but Steve suddenly noticed that he was still holding my hands and he released them before taking a step back. I let my arms fall limply by my sides and looked at him, holding back a pout and waiting for the next part.

"Tape should prevent ripped knuckles," Oh, we were still on the tape subject, "and it will force you to learn how to close your hand properly when you deliver a punch."

A little bit sceptic, I closed my hand into a fist and swung, hitting the bag solidly with my taped knuckles. It still hurt a little, but less than normally. With a slowly growing smile, I delivered another satisfying punch onto the bag, then another…

*o*O*o*O*o*

I don't know how much time I spent there, punching and kicking alternatively the bag in a pattern that could be described as some kind of dance. Steve had left me alone, apart from a few tips given here and there from time to time, and had returned to his own reinforced bag.

When I finally listened to the nerves' endings in my battered hands, I was sweating profusely, my throat felt like a desert and I was panting heavily, like a dog on a hot summer day. My muscles were hurting from overuse but damn, it felt good. I was warm, relaxed and quite satisfied with myself.

"You  _know_  how to hit." Steve had commented sometime during my battle with the punching bag. I had had a few answers on the tip of my tongue but I had kept my mouth shut and taken the comment as a compliment.

"I'm going to hit the showers." As I said this, I had to restrain my imagination from running wild about how many interesting things could be done in the shower, an awful lot of them involving the sweaty muscled guy giving a hard time to the bag in front of him… And nope! Not going down that mind path.

"Don't forget to remove the tape!"

Well, I had kind of forgotten that…

*o*O*o*O*o*

"You're mooning."

Snapping out of my daydreaming, I shot Vanessa a heated glare. "Clint says I'm staring, you say I'm mooning… Next time, what will it be? I'm drooling?" I grumbled.

"Don't get cranky when I'm just telling you a fact." Ness said.

Snorting, I turned my attention back to the book I was supposed to read, taking a sip of my coffee. Now, since Vanessa didn't like coffee, it was maybe a little cruel of me to bring her to Starbucks for our little girl-time. We would have invited Natasha and Pepper to come with us but the former was nowhere to be found and the latter still had work to do.

As if she had read my thoughts, my best friend groused: "I don't understand how you can drink that."

Since it wasn't the first time she had wondered that – and since it wasn't a question – I didn't bother with yet another explanation as to why I loved coffee.

We sat in a companionable silence for a while, mindless of the time, both engrossed in our book. I was reading a thriller while Nessie was going through some fantasy novel. She was far more engrossed in her story than I was which was probably why I saw  _him_  before she did.

Tall, pale, with perfectly coiffed raven black hair. He was wearing dark clothes against which contrasted a green and gold scarf. In his hand, he held an innocent-looking black umbrella with a gold handle. His gaze, apparently bored, swept distractedly over the buildings around but there was a light in those poison green irises that meant acute awareness.

"Holy shit!" I cried out, jumping on my feet and almost knocking my now empty coffee cup off the table.

"What the fuck is your problem?" Vanessa growled, glaring up at me. Her irritation morphed into confusion when she saw me putting the book into my bag and grabbing my coat in a visible hurry. She stood too. "Lex, what's wrong?"

"Hurry up, I just saw Loki!" I whispered urgently.

My best friend skeptically looked at me, her hand itching toward her own coat. "You're sure about that?"

I was already by the door by the time she finished her sentence. "Yes! Come on, Nessa! We'll lose him!" I bolted out.

Outside, I believed for a short moment that I had indeed lost him. Green caught my eye. I saw him calmly crossing the street and scurried after him, not waiting for Vanessa, who was following me anyway if the angry "Alexanne!" was anything to go by.

I don't know how long I actually followed Loki though the streets of New York after sending a quick text to Tony, who hadn't answered me yet. Once, the god glanced over his shoulder and I thought he had taken notice of Vanessa – who had fallen in step with me – and I but he never quickened his step.

"He acts like a tourist visiting the city…" I grumbled.

Vanessa snorted. "A god who tried to destroy New York City… You really think he would play the tourists?"

I shrugged. "How would I know?" Fishing my phone out of my pocket, I frowned at the lack of answer, then decided to send another message to Tony, who had maybe thought that I was bluffing in the first message (now why would I do that was a good question, but how could I know how that guy's mind worked?).

Ness' hand on my arm stopped me and she pointed toward the alley we had just passed. "He turned. Do we follow or…?"

"We've been following him for quite a while! We're not stopping now!" And I ventured into the alley, ignoring Ness' long-suffering sigh.

I stopped abruptly. Nothing. Loki had disappeared. We were alone in the alley.

"Shit." Vanessa was blinking but she nodded once when I breathed the cuss word. "Where has he gone to?"

"I saw him turn here!" Ness exclaimed in a low voice. "I'm sure I did!"

I believed her but I couldn't help but feel a stab of disappointment at losing the god's trace.

Well… Come to think of it… Maybe following a  _god_  hadn't been my brightest idea. If he had noticed us, he could have killed us!

My cell vibrated in my pocket and I pulled it out with a scowl. "Dammit, Stark! You decide to answer me  _now_!?"

I was typing a short answer ("Too late, we lost him."), when Vanessa's shrill "Alexanne, watch out!" brought me back to the present moment. Instinct took over for a few seconds and I crouched, narrowly avoiding the golden stick that swished through the air over my head. Vanessa dropped to the ground to avoid the scepter as it swung toward her and we both raised frightful eye toward the owner of said scepter.

"Loki!" Ness cried out at the same time I muttered: "Crap!"

The Norse God's scepter shone green for a few seconds and I tried to duck again, only to find out that I couldn't move, as if my body was frozen from the inside. As a matter of fact, I felt heavy and dizzy, as if my body's temperature had either dropped or went up suddenly. I couldn't even blink!

"Do you really think that I wouldn't notice that you were following me, foolish Midgardians?" Loki asked in that smooth voice of his and really, how such an ice-cold god could have such a nice voice was beyond me.

My answer would have been something along the lines of "Of course not!" but my tongue didn't answer my brain's orders. It felt thick and weird, as if it didn't belonged to me anymore.

"You know the Avengers?"

And suddenly, I could use my mouth again. My fingers – and the rest of my body for that matter – were still stiff and unresponsive, though. It was both incredibly annoying and frustratingly uncomfortable.

I didn't know what to answer that wouldn't end up in injuries. Vanessa opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, looking unsure.

"Answer me." Although soft, his voice carried a hint of steel. "I heard you mention Stark's name. Do you know him personally?"

From the corner of my eye, I met my best friend's gaze. She mouthed "No" and I croaked out the same answer, deciding that lying might work.

Okay, who was I kidding? This was the god of Lies and Mischief… He could probably smell lies a mile ahead.

I winced when, far from looking satisfied with my answer, Loki crouched before me and tapped my temple with ice-cold fingers. "Don't lie, little mortal." He then turned his gaze on Vanessa. "Do you know the Avengers personally?" As he asked the question, his freezing touch skidded to my throat and he pressed lightly there. Terror slammed into me, dizzying and I let out a gasp.

_Not there. Not my throat, you bastard, I hate feeling even more vulnerable!_

"Leave her alone!" Ness snapped. Not impressed the slightest, Loki only pressed a bit more, this time causing a small pain. There must have been something showing in my eyes because Vanessa let out a soft "Yes… We do…" filled with a mix of anger, disappointment and fear.

Loki smirked and released my neck, stepping away from me. "Your stupidity has just made my day, then! For you might be useful tools."

"Tools?" I choked out before I could think of holding my tongue.

The god turned his green eyes on me and offered me a dangerous smile, one that made me internally shiver.

"Tools of my revenge, ignorant Midgardian." Jeez, were we only stupid  _Midgardians_  to him?

Loki pointed his scepter on Vanessa and traced something in the air before murmuring something that sounded like a spell from ' _Harry Potter_ ' in a foreign language.

When Vanessa glowed silver and disappeared, I let out a scream of anguish. The Norse God rolled his eyes and did the same thing on me.

A tingle went through me, the world swam before my eyes and everything became a dizzying blur. Then, it went backward. The blur cleared into discernible objects and the tingle faded away.

"You okay?" Vanessa's voice reached my ears and I nodded immediately.

"Yeah. Just a little dizzy. I guess I had forgotten what teleportation feels like."

"Yep. And we're stuck  _again_." Ness muttered grimly.

I shot a look around and groaned. "Oh, bloody fucking hell!"

We had been kidnapped. Again. And were kept prisoner in a cell.  _Again_.

Jesus Christ, did we have a 'kidnap us, please!" sign taped on the back or what?


	12. 11: Thoughts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for possible OOC-ness (again, just in case) and some angst.

**Chapter 11: Thoughts**

Standing, I quickly went around. It was a vast improvement from the last cell we'd been kept in. There was no trace of dust and the cell was very white and lit up, even if I couldn't see any visible lights. The floor was smooth and polished, like white marble, but made of some kind of giving material… Leather maybe? There was a double bunk bed in a corner, a little pot (I crinkled my nose at this) and a small round green carpet, the only touch of colour in the otherwise blank 'room'.

There was also the startling absence of anything resembling a door.

"Uh… He's going to teleport us food or what?" I grumbled. A sudden rage welled inside me, a violent answer to our helplessness. "Bloody fucking hell, not again!" I kicked the wall, then again, then again.

"Stop that, you'll injure yourself!" Vanessa cried out, catching my wrist and pulling me backward firmly. I freed myself.

"I won't! Ness, the walls are made of some kind of rubbery elastic substance. It's like… like hitting a huge comfy leather couch and the floor is made of the same material and I. Need. To. Hit. Something!"

"Hitting a couch hurts."

"Not necessarily."

"I hope your quarters satisfy you." Loki's silky voice cut through the air before Ness could reply.

I glanced at where he had appeared with utter disbelief. "Now, that sounds like something Maniac would have said."

Vanessa face-palmed and I didn't know whether it was because of me or because of Loki. She then sighed heavily. "Not another one…"

"Would you have the amiability as to not compare me to that… filthy, discourteous mortal that you have met previously?" And wow, the way he said it… Maniac was no better than a miserable stinky piece of shit under his boot. Not that there was anything even remotely close to dejections in the cell but the comparison was amusing.

"Wait, you know who Maniac is?" I mused aloud, confused. Had he met the guy before or what?

Nessa gave me a disbelieving look. "Of course he knows, he's fucking Loki of Asgard!"

Oh, true. Mental self-headslap. "Yeah… Why did I even ask?"

"You know of me?" Loki inquired.

"Of course we know of you, you dumbass!" Vanessa snapped, which might not have been the brightest thing to do.

As if to prove my thought right, a dangerous-looking flash of fire went through the God's green irises. "The Avengers told you of me!" he stated aggressively.

I exchanged a small frightened glance with my best friend. "Well… Not exactly. In fact, it's kind of a long story that would, I am sure, eventually bore you."

"Really?" Loki wasn't impressed.

"Yes, believe me, it is." Ness muttered loud enough to be heard. "Unless you want to hear about crazy inter-whatever travelling…"

"Inter-parallel dimension travelling." I corrected absently.

"Right, that. So unless you wanna hear about how much it fucked out lives, you'd better just drop it."

When Loki only raised an eyebrow, I elaborated a little bit. "You know, we weren't ready for it and we sure as hell weren't calling for it to happen. It just… well, happened… and we can't give you much more info."

The god peered at us intensely, as if analysing if what I had said was true or not. I just crossed my arms and raised my chin in a silent assertion of stubbornness.

"You will be fed regularly. Enjoy your stay." he concluded coldly before disappearing.

As soon as he popped out of the door-less room, Ness and I exchanged a look.

"Well… That was an interesting conversation." I commented. "Now what?"

"Well… uh…" Vanessa tapped her lower lip thoughtfully.

"Don't say ' _I don't know_ ', please…"

A smirk appeared on Ness' lips. "I don't know!"

I groaned and flopped down on the bottom bunk bed. "Fuck this; fuck that guy, fuck Tony for not getting my texts any sooner, fuck the lack of signal, fuck that portal device…" I breathed deeply. The white – why was everything  _white_? – bed linens smelled clean. "Fuck my life in general… at least, right now, because I usually kind of like my life as it is. Well, before all that crazy headache-worth stuff happened. Fuck everything." I growled, resisting the brief urge to chew the pillow.

"Stop swearing and help me."

I peered over my shoulder to see that Vanessa was knocking gently on the too bright walls, as if looking for…

"We're not in an Indiana Jones movie, you know. There's probably no hidden door." I mumbled.

"Can't fault a girl for trying." Vanessa answered.

"Do you think that if I insult Loki, he's going to do something interesting?" I mused aloud.

" _That_  would be a particularly  _bad_  idea."

*o*O*o*O*o*

Loki was better than Maniac had been. The food resembled actual  _food_ , the cell was warm and clean, and he wasn't flirting badly with my best friend.

He was also worse.

He never actually appeared in the cell after that one time. The meals were teleported in and out, thus meaning a lack of any exterior visitors. The worst was when his daunting voice echoed in the cell, that  _silver tongue_  of his dripping venom all over our weaknesses, our stupidity, our helplessness. And unlike Maniac's taunts, Loki's insults stung deeply.

Vanessa was literally fuming each time he began to talk to us.

The god talked to us  _every_  day.

After about a week – God, but did I love my watch! – I was about to blow a fuse.

Blow a nasty exasperated fuse.

"You done yet!?" I snapped, cutting through one of Loki's derisive remarks about our numerous flaws.

Sudden blissful silence filled the cell. Usually, Vanessa and I settled on ignoring him, even if pressing our fingers in our ears didn't stop the spiteful words from being heard anyway.

But – and I was praising myself for my control – it was the first time I reacted to the continuous string of insults in the whole week.

"Pardon me?" Loki's voice, still as smooth and silky as usual, now carried a touch of frosty steel.

"I asked if you were done yet! I – we – might be mere mortals to your eyes, but we have feelings and you are becoming downright  _nasty_." I should have shut up but words were flowing out of my mouth and I didn't want to keep them in anymore. "Must be nice, finally being able to bully someone smaller than you. Letting out your pent-up frustration on people who can't hurt you back. Getting revenge!" I spat the last word at the same time Vanessa's nails dug in my bicep to shut me up.

It was just too late. I had said what I wanted to say. And it was too late to take it back.

Loki would probably kill us anyway. Now or later, was there really a difference?

"How would you know anything about what you are saying, stupid Midgardian?!" Loki growled.

Full of attitude now that I wasn't holding back anymore, I stood, then leaned against a cushioned wall. "Oh, I don't know… Maybe I have been bullied for years. Maybe I have been repeatedly pushed away because I was too intelligent, too aggressive, too self-assertive… too different. Maybe I simply have difficulties to fit in. Maybe it's all of them together and I just have enough! Enough of being treated like shit!"

Vanessa sighed quietly. Where my voice had been dripping with attitude and some sarcasm, Ness' was calm, almost sad. "Maybe mortals are not as different from the gods as you'd like to think, Loki." Her brown eyes swept over me momentarily before she looked up at the ceiling. "Maybe the stupid Midgardians are small and weak, powerless and mortal… But maybe we also have a fire inside us, burning quietly for some, raging powerfully in others. Maybe we are strong in a different way."

"And maybe we are not  _all_  stupid. Maybe some of us can actually show a remarkable intelligence, a vast knowledge… or simply a desire to learn about different things." I added softly, anger still simmering in the pit of my stomach.

Only silence answered us and I wondered if Loki was gone.

And not for the first time, I wished I could use telepathy to talk with Vanessa without outsiders' ears prying on our conversation.

Fifteen minute of utter silence passed by and I let out a soft sigh.

"Well shit."

*o*O*o*O*o*

Two days later, although we were still being fed at regular times, there was complete radio silence from our tormentor.

"He still hasn't talked to us."

Vanessa sighed. "I know."

I munched absently on celery and looked up at the top bunk. "Do you think we stung something sensitive?"

New sigh. "I don't know."

I frowned and twisted a little to kick the top bunk. "Do you know anything else?"

"No."

That settled the conversation.

*o*O*o*O*o*

We had been prisoners of Loki for twelve days when I woke up on the thirteenth morning to be faced with an incongruity in the cell.

Namely, a door.

"Vanessa, there's a door!"

There was some shifting in the top bunk. "What?"

I jumped out of my bed and hurriedly went to the door. My hands wrapped around the handle, part of me fearing that this only was one of Loki's tricks. But when I opened the door – it wasn't even locked! – I found myself face to face with a rectangular portal glowing blue.

"Aw crap."

Blue portals weren't a good thing.

Vanessa joined me in front of the glowing thing to what I seriously hoped was freedom. Handing me my coat, shrugging hers' on, my best friend didn't hesitate much. Grasping my arm, she pulled me along as she marched straight in.

Things spun crazily, rainbows everywhere for a few exhilarating seconds, and we were standing on asphalt in the middle of…

"Central Park. We're back in New York!" I breathed excitedly, fingers grasping urgently for my cell, which I had shut off when it had been clear that we had no signal in the cell. Now, hardly believing my eyes, I turned it on and hurried out of the park to hail a taxi.

Vanessa's eyes were wide with confusion and happiness as she bent down and closed her fingers around a small rock. Her grip tightened momentarily around the jagged edge of the rock as she smiled widely and murmured quietly: "We are  _free_!"

"We are!" I agreed as we sat in the cab – Ness gave the direction to the driver – and I punched the speed dial for Tony's phone.

"Alexanne! Where the hell are you? Is Vanessa with you? Are you aware that you've been gone for almost two weeks!?"

Not even a hello, but after almost two weeks of complete radio silence, I couldn't really blame Tony's lack of politeness. I almost started to cry.

"Long story. But we'll explain everything in max twenty minutes, okay? We're heading toward the Tower, we're okay. I swear." I added when Tony started asking if ' _okay_ ' meant ' _I'm wounded but I'm alive_ '.

"Oh, you better explain. What happened with Loki?"

"Twenty minutes, Tony." I ended the call, felt a bit bad for it, and then started to laugh hysterically.

Vanessa looked at me as if I had gone mad before letting out an involuntary giggle.

And suddenly, we were both laughing crazily, tears streaming down our face. My ribs were hurting by the time I calmed down – the cabbie was worriedly looking at us – but I felt a lot better.

Never had the taste of freedom been so sweet. I opened the window to fill my lungs with the smell of spring slowly starting to take over winter.

I couldn't find an explanation as to why Loki had decided to let us go, but I sure wasn't complaining. Maybe the guy wasn't really a bad one, deep down. Maybe he was just wounded in some way and was trying to get over the hurt through a way that I thought a bit discussable. Or maybe he didn't know how to deal with the hurt.

_If_  it was an emotional wound. I was no psychologist, after all.

*o*O*o*O*o*

"Let me get this straight: Loki kidnapped you. He kept you in a door-less cell for about two weeks. Then, he just  _freed_  you both without giving any sign of  _why_?"

The way Clint presented it, it sounded pretty stupid.

"Yeah. Just like that." I answered drily, crossing my arms over my chest and leaning back against the backrest of the armchair I was occupying.

If anything, Thor and Tony looked even more confused. Steve was frowning as if he couldn't believe it either. Bruce and Natasha were both visibly curious, but they seemed pretty calm. Clint was just plain angry and so tense that I had a fleeting thought about forcefully trying to rub the tension out of his shoulders.

"I do not understand my brother's motives." Thor said softly.

"Maybe…" I started, then shut my mouth. Did I really want to tell them about the verbal confrontation I had had with the God of Lies and Mischief?

"Maybe?" Tony repeated.

I shook my head. "Nothing. An idea that doesn't make sense anyway." I lied smoothly. "I don't understand Loki's motives either, but to be truthful, I'm grateful. I thought he would kill us. Not give us a way out of cell where he dropped us in the first place!"

I brought my knees up and wrapped my arms around them, dropping my chin on the bony prop it created.

"Maybe something changed in his way of thinking." Vanessa said, providing an explanation that resumed vaguely what I had wanted to say without actually giving any details about the conversation.

Clint snorted derisively and looked away.

"What could have changed my brother's way of thinking so fast?" Thor asked and I must have been having a problem with my ears because there was no way that there was such little hope and so much weariness in his voice.

Vanessa's sad look confirmed that I wasn't hearing things wrong. Had Thor lost his faith in Loki so much that he didn't believe that the other god could be changed anymore?

From what little time I had spent with Thor, I had gotten the distinct impression that he God of Thunder was incredibly loyal and that when he gave you his trust, the worst thing you could do was to break said trust. But what had pushed Loki into breaking his brother's trust? It couldn't just be because he was foster child! There had to be something else! Other reasons!

But what were those reasons? What could have make Loki break Thor's trust without a second thought? And most of all, why?

Too many questions, too little answers.

And if the heavy silence in the room was anything to go by, I wasn't the only one wondering.


	13. 12: Heartache

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today is the day for chapter 12!
> 
> In which I warn you for angst, self-depreciation and possibly a confusing train of thoughts. There also still might be a little OOC-ness, even if I wish there wasn't.
> 
> It is more Alexanne-centric than most of the previous chapters, for she is in a unstable emotional state (like in chapter 5, if you need a comparison, but not for the same reasons) and thus focused on herself.

**Chapter 12: Heartache**

"Why are you hiding here?"

Snuggled behind an archery target, I raised my puffy eyes to meet Clint's.

"Steve noticed the staring…" I mumbled, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand for the God-knows-how-many-eth time.

Clint crouched before me. "And?"

"And he told me like a gentleman that he considers me as a friend and that I should look for someone else." My voice broke on the last word and I cursed myself, cursed my stupidity, cursed my crush. I closed my eyes and shook my head so that my hair fell over my face. I didn't want to see the pitying look in Clint's eyes… or uncomfortable one, for that matter. I couldn't picture the archer knowing very well how to deal with a young woman crying after being turned down.

The thought made me swallow down the new forthcoming tears and I angrily wiped my eyes again, thought about biting my wrist, like I usually would have done before I had mostly gotten rid of the habit. I just had to get over the stupid crush and I would be alright. I was a strong, intelligent and mature woman.

I had to control my emotions.

To prove to myself that I was right, I forced a smile (that probably looked more like a twisted grimace than anything else…) "Can't say that I didn't know that it would end this way, though. I'll be alright."

Clint's eyebrow went up. "You sure?"

I bit down on my lower lip to keep it from trembling, swallowed, then managed to get out an almost normal-sounding 'yes'.

Scratching the back of his neck, the archer sighed and nodded. "If you say so." He stood and offered me a hand. "Do you want to shoot some arrows?"

Thankful, I grasped the proffered hand and let the archer pull me up. "Yeah. It would be nice, thanks." My voice was soft and the lack of any intonation made me internally wince.

Clint noticed it too.

"Are you sure that you are okay, Alexanne? If your mind is not on the task, you'll hurt yourself."

I bit my lip hard to stave off the tears and nodded again, a reflex more than the truth. "Yeah?" I sniffled, wiped my eyes again.

Pale blue eyes searched mine, an eyebrow raised in interrogation.

"No?" I croaked and the dam broke again. Hiding my face behind my hair, I made toward the door but a strong hand wrapping around my wrist held me back and I was pulled against a warm chest. I first stiffened in shock, then gratefully took the comfort that was offered to me.

"So-oh-oh-rry!" I hiccuped. "I just can't keep… keep it contained! It's stupid and I was fucking idiotic to even dare hope and Jesus Christ! When will I understand?"

"Hush, it's okay. You're going to blow you fuse and be back to your normal strong-headed self after…" Poor Clint. He sounded a bit helpless.

_Why did I even hold to this stupid crush when I knew it would end up like this?_  I wondered, slightly mortified at the way I was blubbering like a freaking teenager after her first heartbreak. It wasn't my first, probably wouldn't be my last.

Thankfully, my third round of tears since the rejection ended up pretty fast, but not before Clint's shirt was wet.

I stepped away from him awkwardly. "Crap… Sorry for that… Uh… I gotta go… Blow my nose, rinse my face, something… See you later."

I ran away.

*o*O*o*O*o*

"What happened?" Vanessa asked from her spot on my bed.

"Hmm?" I dried my face with the towel, touched my stinging eyelids lightly. The cold water should have diminished their puffiness.

"Your eyes are red and you blew your nose three times. You've visibly been crying a lot. What happened? Why didn't you come to me?"

I sighed deeply. "I got rejected, didn't take it very well, as usual, and preferred to deal with it on my own instead of bothering you. I'm okay now."

My best friend looked at me, eyes widening in surprise. "You told Steve that you love him?"

There was a sharp pang of hurt in my chest. I swallowed past the lump in my throat. "No. I'm not that foolish. He noticed the staring…"

"And he putted two and two together." Vanessa finished.

I nodded, not trusting myself to not break down again if I answered.

"You still could have told me instead of hiding. It wouldn't have bothered me, I'm your friend!"

I winced, hung my head down, twisted my fingers together until the stretch started to sting a little. I didn't know what to answer to that and felt guilty for having given Vanessa the impression that I didn't trust her with my feelings…

"Ah, get up! We'll go see Tony, because I'm not letting you drown in self-pity anymore." My best friend stated firmly, grabbing my arm and pulling me toward the elevator.

"Self-pity…" I muttered.  _Real egocentric, am I?_  I thought nastily to myself. Then, the other part sunk in. "Tony?" I repeated, bemused. "Why  _Tony_?"

"Because he's always able to cheer me up and that's something. So I thought that he could cheer you up too."

"Taken like this." Quietly, I was agreeing. A grumpy Vanessa was as easy to cheer as a wall. Distant, practically ignoring you. What I hadn't known was that Tony Stark apparently  _could_  cheer walls.

Luckily for me, Ness wasn't a mind reader, because she wouldn't have liked my current thoughts.

Though, when had it happened that she had been sufficiently grumpy for  _Tony_  to have to cheer her up?

*o*O*o*O*o*

"That girl needs something invigorating." Tony claimed after a complete analysis of my facial expression. I had resisted – barely – the urge to snap my teeth at him like a spooked dog. "JARVIS, what time is it?"

"Three o'clock pm, sir."

The man nodded. "A bit early, but not too much."

My gaze remained fixated on one of the numerous blue screens while Tony moved some things around.

_I'm a fool and I was stupid. Stupid crush equals stupid heartbreak equals loss of control…_

The music had been reduced to an almost quiet buzz.

_Why did I hold to this feeling? Warmth? Hope? Stupidity! I'm intelligent, where had that intelligence gone?_

I was startled when a glass filled with some amber liquid was presented to me. It smelled heady.

"Alcohol?" I asked softly, hand reaching up to wrap around the glass.

Beside me, Vanessa grimaced. "Not for me, thanks."

I took a sip of whatever was in there, mindful of the fact that I was probably drinking something strong on an empty stomach. Tears welled in my eyes and it took all my willpower not to cough as it burned down my throat and settled warmly in my belly.

"Strong stuff!" I affirmed, blinking. A tear leaked from the corner of my eye, and since I didn't know whether it was because of the alcohol or because of the reason I was down here in the first place, I focused on the burn of another sip.

"Whiskey. Good one. It should calm you down." Tony answered, putting the bottle away after a quick study of the label.

"I'm calm." I muttered and took another sip when hurt replaced the alcohol's warmth. The burn came back, momentarily chasing the hurt away.

"Only one glass." Vanessa ordered. "I don't want you drunk off your ass."

"I can hold my alcohol pretty well." I replied sharply, a spark of defensiveness.

Too quickly, my glass was empty. But the rational part of my mind won over the whinny part asking for more, even if I did lick my lips a couple of times to chase the lingering taste of whiskey. It really was a good one.

Tony had been right. I was calmer. And his workshop was a nice place where to hide. Nicer than behind an archery target, anyway.

Looking at me, Ness nodded. "Good. Can I leave her in your hands for a while?" she asked Tony. To me, she said: "You're probably going to feel better if you bask in your drink in relative peace for a while."

"Are you saying that I'm drunk?"

Vanessa rolled her eyes. "No, I'm saying that you need a while."

I nodded mutely, standing unsteadily – I was still shaking with nerves – and looking around for a better place to sit than the corner of Tony's overcrowded worktable while Vanessa exited the workshop.

As soon as the doors closed behind her, Tony pointed a stool. "Sit. You look like you could use at least another drink." He pulled out the bottle of whiskey and poured two fingers in my glass before handing it back to me. "There. I know that Loch Ness is monitoring your drinking, but you don't look steady anyway."

"Thanks. I knew I would get rejected you know." I took a sip, let it roll in my mouth, and swallowed it down. "I just stupidly held to the feeling, thinking Steve wouldn't notice." I gulped down more whiskey, too much, to soothe the sudden sting of pain. Coughing, I almost spat half of it out, but I managed to swallow it down before gulping in some air. Tony patted my back and I shrugged him off. "I'm okay." I mumbled.

There was a short moment of silence, my eyes fixed on an annoying smudge of something on the wall, before what was spinning round in my mind poured out:

"Why did I even dare think that it could happen? That the feeling could be shared? I'm probably too much for anybody!" I croaked, finishing my glass and sending a miserable glare toward the small amber ring still in the bottom of it.

_Too much. Too aggressive, too intelligent, too independent…_

"Will I ever learn?" I mused aloud.

"Learn what?" I jumped. Right, I wasn't alone. Tony was there. Right… Wasn't there a bottle of whiskey lying somewhere near?

"Not to fall in love because it always ends up in heartbreak?" I said simply. It was true. Or so I thought. Maybe it was only true for me.

"Pessimist, aren't you?"

"No, just realist. After all, I'm not living in a movie, with the happy ending." I laughed mirthlessly. "You are supposed to come from a movie. Were supposed to. The movie ended well, if I remember correctly. Am I in a movie?"

Tony plucked the glass from my lax fingers. "You are drunk."

"I'm not. A little tired, definitely hurting and unhappy, but  _not_  drunk. Nuh-uh. My mind is still in over-drive, I can feel the gears spinning. And I still can feel the hurt sharply. So I'm not drunk. Well, maybe a little, but not enough."

Smirking, the dark-haired man nodded. "Right. You're babbling, by the way."

"I know I am!" I retorted. A tiny smile appeared on my lips at Tony's soft chuckle, a trickle of happiness soothing a little bit the aching in my heart. It was short-lived though. "I do that when I lose what little control I have over my emotions. Babble, I mean."

"Do you drink?"

"When I'm sad or angry? Not usually. Low inhibitions don't work well with my negative emotions. I'm extreme, no boasting there. I think?"

"Rational aren't we?"

I shrugged. "I guess so, yes. Most of the time. Because I'm not rational when it comes to my emotions."

Tony snorted. "Emotions are  _not_  rational. They're largely in opposition to rationality."

My protest was quick. "But when you know how it is going to end if you let an emotion grow, shouldn't you rationalize your emotion before it ends up in pain?"

_That wasn't as clear as it was in my head._

The man in front of me blinked. "Really, when you're drunk, you shouldn't be able to string that kind of sentence together. But well… Maybe you  _should_  rationalize. But the question is:  _do you want to?_ "

He had gotten me here. "No. It felt nice, you know. Some kind of warmth, blooming pleasantly in my chest…" I sighed deeply and rubbed my arms, suddenly cold. "And now, things are going to be awfully awkward."

"Maybe not."

I snorted and brought my knees up against my chest, almost falling from the stool. A warm hand landed on my shoulder to steady me and I unconsciously leaned toward the warmth until I was snuggling against Tony's shoulder. He stiffened.

_Wait a sec… What the hell am I doing?_

I snapped up again in a straight position, back stiff and hands clenched into fists against my thighs (I was still curled into a tight ball and it was starting to create an ache in my back).

"Sorry. I'm… Stupid reaction…" Frustrated with myself, I shook my head. "Argh! Just ignore me!" I glanced away.

Even if I wasn't looking at him, I could feel some tension radiating from Tony. Not anger, though. Just…

Again, that warm hand returned to my shoulder and squeezed.

Oh God, what wouldn't I do for it to be Steve's hand and be allowed to lean into the contact!

A wave of  _hurt_  surged through me and I bit down on my lower lip,  _hard_. Bright sting of pain – it actually  _surprised_  me – and I gasped, uncurling an arm from around my legs to gingerly touch my throbbing lip.

Blood.

"Whoops."

Sucking my lip in my mouth, I licked it clean, not disturbed the slightest by the metallic tang of it.

"Oh, don't tell me you're part-vampire!"

I rolled my eyes at Tony's quip.

"Haha, very funny. I'm not." I licked the finger with blood on it clean.

"You sure act as if you were."

"The taste of blood doesn't bother me. And it's my own blood, not some stranger's." I grumbled defensively, although it lacked my usual bite.

My shoulders slumped, the irritation draining out of me. I did not want to argue with Tony. I was tired, emotionally drained – I sure wouldn't be able to cry anymore, even if I wanted to – and I was  _calm_. Even my continual train of thoughts had slowed down. I was calm in a way I rarely was. Crying had been mainly because of the rejection, but it also had ridden me of contained frustration.

I must have been starting to nod off, because I suddenly fell off the stool. Well, partly. I was stopped midway by Tony's hands gripping me under the arms, thus putting me in an awkward position; my bottom floating about four inches above the floor, my legs dangling from the stool.

"Whoa! Honestly?" I shook my head. "Okay… I think you can put me down, Tony."

Once he did, I brought my legs down and just sat there, fixing the same annoying spot on the wall without really seeing it. My mind was wandering slowly.

"Thanks for saving me from a concussion. By the way, you really need a couch down here." I said absently, raising a hand to twirl a strand of dark hair around a finger.

"Do I?" Tony asked, leaving me on the spot to go tap a few things on a couple of blue screens.

"Hmm-hmm… Less dangerous that a stool," I pushed at said object with a foot, "more comfortable than the floor."

Silence. I guessed that he had engrossed himself in his work. Torn between wanting to talk to him or just let the silence fill the room, I rolled on my stomach and pillowed my head on my arms to at least relieve my back from the slight ache. Once I was kind of comfortable – as comfortable as you could get on a stony floor – I found myself drifting, my thoughts wandering elsewhere.

"Which color?"

I blinked. I wasn't sure how much time had passed, but the question seemed to be coming from nowhere.

"Which color for what?"

"The couch."

Oh.

I stood and approached to peer over Tony's shoulder. "Is that leather?" I pointed one of the couches shown on the screen.

"Yup."

"Easy to clean, I think? At least, easier than other materials, which is a plus since it'll be in a workshop. Color?" I looked around, my eyes taking in the various shades of grey everywhere, the contrast of blue – the blue prints and a few other things – and a couple of lost colors. And the light.

"White."

Tony looked at me, then returned to the couch I had pointed. "Okay."

When I saw the price tag, though, I winced. "Ouch."

Those brown eyes frowned up at me. "What?"

"Costly."

Brief silence. Tony was visibly surprised. Then, he laughed.

What the heck?

Oh…

I face-palmed.  _Jesus, Lex!_  Tony Stark had loads of money! The price of the couch probably didn't bother him the slightest.

"I didn't say anything." I muttered, resisting the brief urge to cuff Tony on the back of the head for laughing at me. "Forget I said something."

I crossed my arms over my chest, caught between embarrassment and irritation.

"Aww… Don't go all grumpy on me, Little Leaf."

The pet name had a strange relaxing effect. Since Thor had called me "Little Leaf", it had become one of my main nicknames. For Tony, it apparently was the equivalent of Vanessa's "Loch Ness". But unlike my best friend, the nickname wasn't actually bothering me.

"I'm not grumpy. Just tired."

"And drunk."

" _Not_  drunk."

The irritating man smiled. "Are so."

"Am not. Why do you think that I'm drunk?"

"I don't think that you really are drunk. Well, maybe a little."

Temper rising, confused, I asked: "Then why the hell do you keep saying so?"

"To rile you up, of course! Gotta love that quick temper!"

Speechless – which was surprising in itself since shutting me up was no easy task – I blinked a couple of times. Annoyance at myself for being so easy to irate and amused disbelief at Tony's ability to shock me battled inside my head until the amusement won over, probably helped by the alcohol.

A smile spread on my lips as I rubbed my left temple. "I hate you." I said, even if the helpless smile clearly negated the lie.

"Yeah, I can see that."

The sarcasm had me snorting. I wrapped my arms around Tony's shoulders in a spontaneous hug.

"Thanks for the cheering up." I murmured.

Although he had first tensed at the unexpected hug, Tony relaxed fractionally. "I'm just that awesome."

I snorted again. "Yeah, you are. But don't let it go to your head. It's already big enough as it is."

Releasing him, I walked to the elevator. "I'm starting to get a little hungry. I'll go do the supper. Try to come up to eat with us, okay?"

He merely hummed in answer and I rolled my eyes.

Just as the doors were about to close behind me, Tony said:

"Oh, Alexanne! You cannot be  _too_  much for everybody."

It took me a while to understand where that came from, but once I did, remembering my earlier harsh affirmation that I was "probably too much for anybody", a grin spread across my face.

"Thanks." I said in an empty elevator.


	14. 13: Birthday Plans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here is chapter 13!
> 
> A cute, fluffy chapter (mostly) with sugar and balloons.
> 
> No joke.

**Chapter 13: Birthday Plans**

"No. No way. We're not putting a huge piñata shaped like a rainbow-colored dragon in the middle of the living room." I protested, stopping the spinning motions of Tony's chair – which I had stolen, although the man had merely taken a spot on the corner of his desk to sit – to shake my head.

"You are no fun. This piñata would be loads of fun."

"Tony, just no. Believe me, that's  _not_  for Vanessa."

"Come on!"

"I think you should let Alexanne handle the organization." Natasha cut in and I shot her a grateful smile because Tony would think twice about it before messing with  _her_.

Stark huffed. "Fine. But don't hold yourself back too much. You said 'party', so let's have a  _real_  party!"

"Just so you know; Vanessa isn't much of a drinker." I said absently, scribbling down a list of what we needed on a StarkPad.

"Thor will drink her glass."

"And I don't want the party to end with everybody drunk, so there has to be a limit on the quantity of alcohol."

Natasha nodded once. "I can keep an eye on the bar."

"That would be great." I said, ignoring Tony's disgruntled look. "Casual clothing. We want it to be a surprise and Ness is going to know what's going on if she is forced into a dress."

"Come on, Lexy, give me something to work with!" Tony asked.

"Patience!" I growled in a way that left no place for arguing. The genius apparently got it – for once. He shut his mouth and merely glared at me to express his dissatisfaction.

Nodding to myself, I continued my list. "Not too many people. Let's keep it between ourselves. No inviting strangers to the party, please."

"You  _really_  are no fun."

"I can be fun. When I want to. Decorations… We'll need balloons, ribbons, maybe a 'Happy Birthday' banner… Purple, green, white and cream."

"Hmm… Tasteful." Natasha commented.

I smiled. "Yeah, well… I'm going with colors that will please Vanessa while blending sufficiently well together that they won't be an eyesore. Now, for the music… I'll have to find a way to steal Ness' music player to see what she's currently listening to. Lighting… You wanna take care of something, Tony? We'll need a place where we can move around freely, with party lights. Maybe we could also add some video games to the party… And a movie later? But which video games? And what kind of movie?"

Okay. I was slowly developing a headache. I wanted Vanessa's twenty-fifth birthday party to be awesome but, as I wasn't exactly fond of parties in general – too much noise, too many people and the fact that I didn't know how to dance without taking the whole dance floor – I was trying to put ideas together without having much of an idea of what the result would look like.

"Food?" Natasha prompted.

I had never been so grateful for her presence before. But well, I didn't know much about her. She was an assassin, an agent of SHIELD, an Avenger. She was Black Widow and did not have that name for nothing. The woman, even if she wasn't much taller than me, was overwhelming by the aura of danger I  _swear_  I could  _feel_  around her. She was quiet,  _deadly_  efficiency and I really didn't want to get on her bad side.

How not to get on someone's bad side?

Steer clear of them.

But it was kind of hard to steer clear of someone you shared living quarters with.

Anyway. Food.

"Uh… Food… Well, Nessie isn't exactly fond of trying meals she never tasted before – which I always thought kind of weird, but maybe that's just me – so I need something I know she will like… Something simple…"

I cursed my best friend silently. What would she want to eat on her birthday?

_Come on, De Bellefeuille! What's her favorite meal, already?_

"Lasagna with loads of cheese. Like, literally  _dripping_  cheese. With garlic-buttered slices of warm bread. And alcohol and juices, but we had already agreed on that." I decided.

"So that's covered. Tony will take care of the lights and of the alcohol. Clint and I will keep an eye on Vanessa during the preparations to make sure she doesn't accidentally walk on us. Bruce and Steve can mind the food and I'm sure that Steve can also help with the decoration. Thor could too." Natasha summarized.

I momentarily wondered if it would be okay if I was to start to call her 'Tasha' like Clint did, before deciding that it probably was too soon for that.

"If anyone has an artistic taste, it's Steve." I agreed. I had caught a glimpse of his sketchbook once and wow; I was a little jealous. I'll help around and keep an eye on you, Tony, since I'm wary of what crazy ideas can go through that genius brain of yours. And I'll manage Thor."

"I don't have  _crazy_  ideas but  _awesome_  ones."

"Yeah, right. Could have fooled me."

But Tony wasn't even listening to me anymore. "All of this has to be ready without Vanessa knowing in…?"

I winced. We were March 14th. "Seven days. It has to be ready on the 21st."

"You are of course aware that it isn't a lot of time to do this."

I bristled, glaring at him. "I know! Sorry if I've been thinking about other things in the previous weeks!" I snapped. I already felt bad enough as it was for almost forgetting her birthday, thank you very much! "So yeah, seven days. I noticed that subtlety isn't exactly your strong point, but I'm sure you can manage."

The doors to Tony's workshop opened suddenly, making us jump but for Natasha, who either was hard to surprise or didn't jump when surprised.

Vanessa came in.

_Crap!_

"There you all are! What are you doing?"

Nothing that will interest you." I lied smoothly, saving the party list and opening one of the documents I was translating. "I'm working on my translations of the Arc Reactor documents and making some things clear about them with Tony. And Natasha was down here for something about a new gun, right?"

Natasha took it all in stride. "Yes. We were discussing on a new gun with a different type of bullets. A new idea of Tony."

"Electrical impulsion. I'm not done, but when I will be, it'll be a brilliant weapon." Thankfully, Tony did not hesitate to take up the lie, actually bringing up on his blue prints a gun model and a couple of different bullets models. "Just imagine. You load your weapon with those babies – who will vary in size – and shoot. The energy liberated by the propulsion of the bullet will activate the electrical impulsion of it and when it will hit its intended target, it will free an electrical charge that could knock out or even kill the target." he explained.

Not interested in the technicalities, my best friend let out a soft polite "Ah…", then:

"It's lunchtime. You're coming up soon?"

"Yeah, we'll be upstairs in a couple of minutes." I answered and Vanessa nodded before exiting the workshop.

We waited about two minutes in complete silence before Tony let out a noise of relief.

"That was too close. JARVIS, why didn't you tell me that Vanessa was coming down?"

"She asked me not too, sir."

"That woman turned my AI against me." Tony huffed and a smile tugged at the corner of my lips.

"I think he likes her." I quipped.

"Then, there is a risk that he might jeopardize the party by answering any suspicions she might have toward the subject." Natasha remarked.

It has the effect of a bucket of ice dumped on my head – which had happened once for a stupid dare – and I shook my head furiously. "He wouldn't… JARVIS, if the party is to be a surprise, Vanessa must know nothing of it, okay? Don't tell her anything at all about it, even if she asks!"

It wasn't my place to give orders to the AI, but he had to keep it quiet if I wanted the surprise to be perfect.

"Understood, Alexanne."

And it had taken a while to get him to call me that.

"Thank you, JARVIS. Now, let's go have some lunch."

*o*O*o*O*o*

As the days ticked by, we managed to smuggle everything we needed in the Tower without Vanessa knowing. Decorations, food and drinks, gifts… even some fireworks (Tony's brilliant idea, I had to admit).

Now, early in the morning on March 21st, I was having a solid moment of panic.

I had to get Vanessa out of the building. Subtly.

Then decorate the living room – which had been decided as the place where we would have the party. There was food to prepare and I had to make sure that there was an easy access to it and the drinks. I also had to manage the preparations, make sure that Tony didn't do anything crazy, clear the space for fireworks on the top of the Tower…

"Fucking hell, what was I thinking?"

_Okay, calm down. You can do this, Lex. You can organize this party properly and then say: "I organized a party once and it was_ awesome _. It will be awesome, Vanessa will love it, and you're worrying too much for nothing._

_Again._

There was a knock on my door and my eyes flickered from the wall – I seriously contemplated redoing the whole decoration of my room – to said door.

"Coming."

I opened the door on Thor – over-excited, cheerful, boisterous Thor – who smiled brightly.

"Vanessa is still in her room and I do not think she knows of the party!" the god announced. "The Captain wants you to eat something before we begin to prepare for the festivities."

"Right. Breakfast. I have to get Vanessa out of the Tower after lunch. Not before. She'll be suspicious otherwise. And Thor, calm down, please. Just a little." I was stressed and I don't know why his excitement made the stress worse. Maybe because I didn't only want to please Vanessa. Maybe because I wanted to prove that I could do  _something_  of my hands and brain to the Avengers.

Maybe…

_Argh! I don't honestly know!_

It visibly took him some effort, but the Norse god managed to control his level of jumpiness, although the bright smile didn't lose any of its intensity. If I was to put a wire between those white, grinning teeth, I wondered how long it would take before a battery was charged.

"Can't wait to participate in a Midgardian birthday party?" I asked as I followed Thor to the nearest elevator.

"Indeed. Tony Stark told me that Midgardian birthday parties are different from Asgardian ones. It is obvious already for you do it once a year. On Asgard, we have gigantic feasts for special age-reaching only. I remember my coming of age fondly. I had never drunk so much ale before. But I understand that for humans, every year must be special, since you have so little time to live." He looked mournful at that.

It made me a little mournful too.

"But I am very eager to see the result of your thoughtful planning!"

A fair number of answers went through my head, but I finally settled on a muttered: "I just hope this will turn out well."

Having finally learned that slapping me between the shoulder blades wasn't a good idea, Thor patted me on the shoulder. "I am sure that it will please Vanessa."

I sighed. "I really hope you're right."

In the kitchen, I was met by the mouth-watering scent of waffles, which had me having a fleeting thought about maple syrup. Did Tony have some in those fancy cupboards of his?

All thoughts on maple syrup flew out the window when Steve presented me a plate of delicious-looking waffles, which I thanked him for with a smile. Sure, with the stubborn lingering crush – was it really something I could consider as a 'crush' anymore? – it still hurt a little to act as if nothing was wrong around him, but even if I was extremely emotional, I was getting pretty good at keeping a straight face; pretty good at acting as if I had gotten over it.

I was an awfully good liar.

And I wasn't sure that I liked it.

_Okay. Let's direct my thoughts on something else! Now._

"Since Vanessa isn't there, we might as well review the planning. After lunch, not before, I'll find a way to drive Ness out of here. Tony, you'll get started with the lights. Natasha, Clint and JARVIS will keep an eye out for Vaness while helping around. Bruce, you're handling the food with Steve, who'll also give me a hand with the decorations. Thor will be in charge of moving the furniture around and I'll supervise the whole thing."

They all nodded in agreement and JARVIS chimed an "I will do so".

"And I'll try not to be too bossy." Because, seriously,  _supervising_  meant that, supposedly, I could give orders. But actually giving orders to the  _Avengers_  just seemed awkward. And anyway, a 'please' was always agreeable and made people more efficient.

"What about the music?" Tony asked.

I smiled, proud of myself. "I managed to get Vanessa's music player and copy her current playlists on a computer that JARVIS will have access to."

"What about the games?"

"I already got a few prepared ideas."

JARVIS announced calmly that Vanessa was coming down. I had to give it to her; her timing was kind of perfect, even if she wasn't aware of it.

We had first been all sitting around the table. In the space of a few seconds, Steve went back to making a new plate of waffles, Bruce plunged into some scientific magazine that called forth unpleasant memories of my high school years – God, did I hate science even if I wasn't that bad – while Tony grabbed a StarkPad. Thor dug with appetite in his  _pile_  of waffles. Natasha and Clint started a staring match, which interested me even less than the scientific magazine. I finally grabbed a StarkPad myself and opened a webpage while I continued to eat.

When Vanessa arrived, it looked like any morning in the last week, if you didn't count the fact that she was up surprisingly early. It wasn't even nine yet.

"Morning!" I chimed cheerfully, which was a great way to get an unimpressive sleepy glare from my friend.

"Hi." Ness answered. Her brown eyes searched mine meaningfully, but I only raised an eyebrow in silent 'confusion' until she looked away.

"Out of bed early, Loch Ness?" Tony teased her.

My best friend shrugged coldly. "Yeah, so?"

"Orange juice to start the day?" I offered. I felt bad for acting as if I had forgotten her birthday. I mean, come on! I would be a poor excuse of a friend if I didn't remember that her birthday was  _exactly_  two months before mine.

Ness shrugged again in answer and if I hadn't been planning the surprise party, I would have felt awful for doing this to her.

I  _really_  hoped that she would enjoy the party.

*o*O*o*O*o*

My laughter was filling the room as Thor happily bounced me around, his big hands on my thighs anchoring me on his massive shoulders.

"Jeez, Thor, wait! Just wait until the balloons and decorations are taped before moving elsewhere! You're going faster than me!" I protested breathlessly, muffling a giggle in my hand at the sight of Steve. He was struggling not to drop or pop the dozen of inflated balloons he was carrying awkwardly.

"Watch your footing, Cap! I've got wires everywhere!" Tony warned absently, surrounded by what looked like miles of wires – red and black, with various stickers of so many different colors that it looks like a rainbow had dripped over them.

Since Clint was currently on watch duty – and the picture of him perched like his namesake on the edge of a building was weirdly hilarious – Natasha was helping with the decorating too. As gracious and nimble as a deer, she was going around the room with long – apparently endless – ribbons which she used to stripe the middle part of the walls with cream, white, green and purple continuous lines. The result was pretty nice, I had to admit, and I gave myself a mental pat for my choice of colors.

As Steve handed me a green balloon, I noticed that Thor's hair rose to follow its movement.

_The wonders of static electricity!_

I gleefully rubbed the balloon against the blond mane to create even more static before finally taping it to its place on the wall.

If anything, Thor was more fascinated than me by the science of it; although, when you could call electricity to your hand by will alone, the creation of it by simple means such as rubbing a balloon on your head probably was a wonder to the god. Eager to recreate the phenomenon, his large hands selected a white balloon and rubbed it strongly against his own head.

_Too_  strongly.

The inflated balloons popped loudly, making me jump badly. I slipped backward and almost fell from Thor's shoulders. My hands grappling at said shoulders saved me  _in extremis_  from what would have been a huge bruise on my bottom but it got me in quite an awkward position; I was unable to drag myself up again and wasn't too keen at the idea of getting the aforementioned bruise by letting myself go.

"I got you." Thankfully, Steve came to my rescue; his hands closed on my waist and he hoisted me back up on Thor's shoulders. Automatically, my legs curled as far as they could go around the god's bulk to anchor myself in place once more and I thanked Steve breathlessly, blood loudly rushing to my ears, adrenaline pumping through my veins. It was a little ridiculous that I got so excited over a near fall, but I had always had extreme reactions to little things.

"I am sorry that I unsettled you so, Alexanne. Balloons are far more fragile than I first believed." Thor apologized, patting my thigh.

I patted his head. "It's alright. When I'm surprised, I react violently." I looked down at Steve, who was gathering the balloons – that he had dropped to help me – back in his arms. Some part of my brain couldn't ignore the way his hands, warm and  _strong_ , had felt around my waist. And that same part couldn't help but to have me trace with my eyes the lines of his arms, yearning for something I could never have. When Steve looked up, I looked away quickly, schooling my features into a pensive look; looking as if I was analyzing the current state of the living room instead of unabashedly staring at him.

"Let's go a couple of balloons there." I decided, pointing the direction to Thor.

About an hour later, the decorating was done – the result looked pretty neat – and I was helping Bruce with the final touches to the cake. It was a vanilla and strawberry cream cake and I hoped that Vanessa would like it.

Tony was about done with the lights, having requested some help from Natasha and an unsure Steve when it had been time to finish the wiring. Thor had been sent outside under the pretext of giving some company to the lonely hawk – who had probably been happier  _before_  the god had joined him – but it was really to get his over-six-foot excited self out of the way.

"I'm done!" Tony exclaimed, coming toward the kitchen. "And Capscile is a lost cause with electricity and connections."

"I just don't understand why it doesn't simply work by plugging everything in a matching hole!"

"Because there are specific holes for specific plugs, Rogers."

"Guys!" I snapped sharply before it could escalate. Thankfully, they both understood and shut their mouths.

When Tony tried to enter the kitchen, however, I barred his way. "Whoa, not so fast! You're done with the lights; good! You have the time to grab a shower. No approaching the food with those dirty hands of yours, Stark." I almost sounded like an order.  _Almost_.

"I think we should all grab a shower." Bruce said.

"I'll go relieve Clint as soon as I'm done." Natasha added before swiftly disappearing.

Okay, a shower sounded nice.

_And after that, it's a countdown until Ness comes back._

*o*O*o*O*o*

I had stopped doing a countdown after half an hour had gone by.

And I had started to get a little worried by the time Natasha announced that Vanessa was finally coming back, almost three hours after she had gone out.

A wave of excitement drowned the questioning marks popping in my mind. We all hurried to our hidey-holes; as I was the smallest, I squeezed myself in a small place – between the wall and a huge speaker – so that Steve and Thor would have access to the bigger hiding spots. As soon as everybody was in place, Tony hissed:

"JARVIS, lights 0%. Darken windows."

Everything went pitch black in a split second, so suddenly that it took me a while before I could begin to discern my hand in front of my face. Thank God, I wasn't claustrophobic.

There was a giggle, a hiss of silence. My eyes were on the elevator doors – at least, somewhere in their vicinity.

It was so quiet now that the only thing I could hear was my thumping heart and the constant buzz of the appliances. It soon was joined by the soft hum of an approaching elevator.

Tony quickly ordered "Elevator lights, 0%" about two seconds before the doors opened. I could picture Vanessa's face at stepping out of a dark elevator into a room just as dark.

Following the timing we had agreed on, I counted three seconds, then jumped out of my hiding spot with a loud "Happy Birthday" chorused by the Avengers.

The low sound of music and all lights came on at the same time, dancing rainbows suddenly covering the floor and walls. It was blinding for a few seconds, but I still threw myself on Vanessa, wrapping her in a hug, blinking fast to chase away the black spots. I was standing  _in_  her bubble, but just for this once, I don't think she minded it all that much.

"Happy 25th birthday, Vanessa."


	15. 14: Trust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Compared to most of my previous chapters, this one is quite shorter, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I re-wrote it entirely to obtain this result and no matter how short it is, whatever OOC-ness you can find or whatever else you can come up with, I'm not touching it ever again (apart to correct silly mistakes - if you see some, please point them out)

**Chapter 14: Trust**

"I have an inquisitive question."

Clint's arrow took flight and neatly struck the bullseye. The archer then turned toward me.

"What kind of inquisitive question?"

I chewed on my lower lip, already cursing myself for opening my mouth in the first place. It was really none of my business but I was… curious?

_Lame. Very lame excuse._

"About your feelings."

_There. It's out. Please, don't kill me._

There was a pause.

Midway into April, the trust developing between us and the Avengers was becoming stronger, allowing us to finally relax in the comfort brought by solid friendships. I no longer feared that Tony would kick us out, although I still didn't believe that Fury wouldn't try to get rid of us and the first opportunity. We were not superheroes and our constant presence in the background was probably annoying the director of SHIELD to no end.

Thing is, we had been only here for two months –

_It feels like years…_

– and the speed at which my relationships with the Avengers were evolving was frightening and I couldn't do anything but let the tide sweep me away.

Clint was the one with whom I was the most comfortable. I wasn't sure how it had come to be so, but it was what had happened. More often than not, he was the one I followed around when I had nothing better to do. Thor was a little too boisterous sometimes. Tony had a tendency to push as many of my buttons as possible. Natasha still made me feel overpowered by her simple presence –  _not_ something I liked very much – and I wasn't sure of how I was supposed to interact with Bruce since I wasn't too keen at the idea of meeting Hulk by accident. And the reason I was kind of avoiding Steve was quite obvious.

_Stupid feelings…_

So when I wasn't alone or with Vanessa – who had a new-found passion for long strolls in the city, apparently – I usually hanged with Clint.

Who was currently looking at me with an unreadable expression. He putted his bow down and crossed his arms over his chest.

"What about them?" he finally asked when I made it quite obvious that I wasn't going to back off by mimicking his position.

I lost some of my arrogant countenance and licked my lips. "Uh…"

He raised an eyebrow, daring me to back off.

I didn't.

"You're in love with Natasha, right? "

Nothing in his body language betrayed an emotion, but there was a flash of something in his eyes that let me know that I had sparked a reaction.

I spoke fast, before I lost my nerve. "I mean… I was just kind of wondering why you two weren't official or anything, because… Well, there's kind of nothing that could signify that you two are together. I mean, I know you're not necessarily the most demonstrative people in the world, but there's like… nothing to show that you two are… more." I gestured with my hand, trying to convey what I meant by 'more'.

"She doesn't love me back."

Clint's answer, short and cold, struck me.

_Wait, what?_

Natasha didn't love him back?

_God, I really_ can't  _read people._

I smacked my palm against my forehead.

_Stupid._

"Okay, I really misinterpreted stuff. Sorry. I thought… I don't know what I thought." I nipped on one of my knuckles uncomfortably. "I'll just… leave you to your… training. Yeah."

I was about to turn on my heel and exactly do that when Clint – moving far too fast – reached out and grabbed my arm.

I jerked with a noise of surprise, my other hand coming up in a purely instinctive move to protect myself. I managed to stop myself before my fist actually connected with Clint's jaw, but he had foreseen the potentially painful movement and tackled me to the floor, landing on top of me in a way that startled a cry of pain from my throat.

_Ouch! What the fucking hell?_

"Jesus Christ, Clint Barton, get off me!" I snarled, kicking at him.

One of my feet actually collided with his back and he let out a huff of surprise. One of his hands reached behind and pinned my ankles to the floor.

The other was pressed against my upper back, fingers curling against the skin of my neck.

The fact that I was completely helpless registered in some part of my mind.

"Get off me, get off me! Let me go, you bastard!" I shouted, twisting like a snake, trying to kick, to bite… Anything to regain my freedom. Adrenaline kicked in but I was still unable to get him off.

Clint jumped off me as if burned and backed off quickly. His lips were moving, but I couldn't hear a sound over the rush of blood in my ears.

The continuous string of  _"sorry"_  and  _"Alexanne, are you okay"_  finally registered in my mind after a while.

I exhaled slowly.

"When I say 'get off', I really,  _really_ , fucking mean 'get off', okay?" I growled softly, sitting up. My breasts hurt from when I had collided with the floor, but I was otherwise unscathed. "I don't like being pinned down. I don't like feeling helpless. Simple as that."

The archer nodded slowly. "Okay. I'll keep that in mind."

After a moment of hesitation, he held out a hand, which I accepted with a small smirk.

"Are you okay, though?"

I rolled my eyes. "I might be lightly bruised, but nothing more. I might not have super powers or have assassin skills, but I'm fairly resilient. Gotta love those instinctive reactions of yours, though."

Clint smirked and nodded.

"Glad that's clear. Now, I believe you were training. And I believe I was leaving you to that."

"Wait, Alexanne."

I stopped and looked at him.

His eyes were oddly colored today, closer to pastel green, but still intense and piercing.

"Yeah?"

He approached slowly, having gathered from my previous reaction that unexpected movements were  _not_  good.

When he got a little too close, however, I took a step back. Still he advanced, until I was backed against a wall.

He flattened his hands against the wall, effectively trapping me.

_I have a_ really _bad feeling about this…_

I swallowed uneasily. This was starting to resemble a little too much some kind of about-to-kiss scene.

_Surely he isn't about to…_

"Uh… Clint? What are you d–?"

I was silenced by a pair of lips against mine and I produced a strangled sound.

_What in heaven's name?_

This was  _so_  wrong.

But…

Clint was warm and he smelled of leather and some kind of woody scent. His mouth tasted of the apple he had eaten before starting his bow practice and his lips were oddly soft.

I nipped at them before I could think about it.

_Kissing is nice._

_Yet, this is_ wrong.

Wrong because I felt uneasiness at kissing Clint. It was nice, but odd at the same time. And there was frustration in his kiss, pent-up tension that he was trying to get rid of and…

No. Just no.

I placed my hands firmly on his shoulders and  _pushed_.

The archer stumbled back and looked at me weirdly.

"Alexanne…"

"No. I'm not who you want. And while I really like you, Clint, I am not in love with you."

" _Lex…_ "

I closed my eyes and shook my head. " _Clint_ … Please, don't make me say bad things. Don't make me say stuff neither of us wants to hear because we are both too good at acting as if nothing's wrong. It's one of the things we have in common." I realised.

Clint was standing so stiffly, like a soldier, like someone awaiting a bad new.

"I am… I have a crush on someone else."

"Steve." he muttered and I winced, but nodded.

"Yeah. Steve. And you are in love with Natasha." I breathed deeply. "We are both pining for persons we cannot have but I won't ruin my friendship with you because of hurt feelings and sexual tension. And I won't let  _you_  do it."

The archer didn't answer anything. His gaze was hard. He was glaring at a spot on the wall, somewhere over my left shoulder.

I crossed my arms over my chest and slumped against the wall.

"It's too weird, anyway. I'm not saying that you are not attractive – I've got eyes, thank you very much – but I really don't see us doing anything sexual."

Silence. It stretched uncomfortably for about two minutes before I snapped.

"Talk to me, damnit!"

"What am I supposed to say?"

I sighed, looked at the ceiling, and breathed through my nose. "Anything, Clint. Anything. You could say 'I won't do it again' or 'I'm sorry' or 'I don't know what I was thinking' or even 'You are attractive too' or something of the kind. I don't know!"

Another pause.

_I swear to God, if he doesn't say something…_

"What do you see us doing?"

Confused, I blinked.

"Sorry, what?"

"You said that you don't see us doing anything sexual. What do you see us doing, then?"

He was still not looking at me and I muttered a couple of well chosen swears from good old Quebec.

It got his attention.

"What was that?"

"Swearing. Glad it interests you… Oh no! You look at me! I'm talking to you, Barton."

His eyes – that had lost the pastel green to turn to an icy blue color – met mine. He had lost his hard edge and seemed a little uncertain.

The anger faded, leaving behind a general wariness. I didn't want to pick a fight.

I opened my arms wide. "Hug?"

Clint hesitated and I just wished that if he refused the hug, he would say so gently and not flinch or something awkward like that.

I was a little surprised when he stepped forward and let me wrap my arms around him. He pressed his face in my neck and stayed still.

One of my hands traced a trail up his back until I reached his head, fingers raking through the short sandy brown strands.

He was stiff, so stiff, as if waiting for pain.

"You know, Clint, if this is such a hardship for you, you didn't have to accept the hug." I murmured. His eyelashes flickered against the skin of my neck and his arms hesitantly came up to wrap around my waist. "That's it."  _One step in the right direction._  "Relax."

He exhaled and the tension drained out of his body slowly.

_He trusts me. This thing between us… It's trust._

I closed my eyes, but tears still leaked at the corners, rolling down my cheeks.

It wasn't tears of pain.

But the sudden trust that had been placed in my hands had lodged something thick in my throat.

Clint snorted softly.

"Are you crying on my shoulder?"

I swallowed. "No?"

_Ooh… Very convincing…_

"Don't put snot everywhere."

I laughed and pushed him back at arm's length, digging my fingers in his shoulders slightly. "You're a jerk, you know that?"

He flashed me a grin. I liked this version of him better. Grinning, relaxed, teasing and – if I wasn't imagining things – trusting.

"You like it."

I resisted the urge to snort – I needed to wipe my nose before doing that, because berk!

"No, I don't."

His smile faded, his expression took a slight edge and I frowned.

"This is what you see us doing?" he asked.

I sighed. "Yeah. Hugs are alright with me. I like them. Kisses on the cheek, okay, but on the lips I'd prefer not. And definitely no touching in awkward places."

"Those are the rules?"

I narrowed my eyes. "If I need to make them rules, yeah."

A smirk spread on Clint's lips.

_What do you have in mind, Barton?_

The archer reached around me and pinched my ass.

I did not squeak –

_I refuse. I disagree. I deny it!_

– but the sound I made was high pitched enough to be mistaken as such.

And apparently hilarious.

Clint bolted, his laugh echoing in the room.

"You are so dead, Barton!"

*o*O*o*O*o*

If anyone asked me to describe my relationship with Clint Barton, I don't know what I would have answered.

In the following weeks, we grew closer. Touches were kept chaste (apart from those teasing pokes in places that made me shriek in protest).

I would drop a kiss on his cheek from time to time, whereas Clint liked to ruffle my hair (which  _I_ didn't like  _at all_ , thank you very much).

I would be allowed to jump on his back for a ride as long as I gave him a warning beforehand. (He had face-planted on the floor once because I had omitted the warning – I had never forgotten it again.)

He would be allowed to play with my hair. The archer really liked to braid it. (He had once told me it was calming to which I had told him to start making bracelets. He hadn't thought it was funny. Shame.)

He would be allowed to steal some of my food, as long as I was allowed to do the same.

And on movie nights – which were a weekly occurrence once again – I would be allowed to use his thigh as a pillow.

Of course, to the outside eye, our relationship had a tendency to be viewed as a 'sexually-involved' one. Vanessa was confused and I had no doubt that she was probably wondering what the hell was going on in my head. Tony couldn't resist lewd comments, even if I had told him more than once that Clint and I  _were not_  sleeping together.

There was Steve, always polite and pleasant, and I was still hoping in silence for more than just friendship.

_Stupid crush._

And there was Natasha, whom I felt as if she was giving me the cold shoulder although she didn't change her attitude toward me. There was just something in the way she sometimes would look at Clint, then me…

Thing is, it really wasn't nothing more than… that. A close, trusting, fun relationship where we were comfortable at sharing space.

From a distance, I guess it could have been described as a brother-sister relationship.

Maybe, unconsciously, it was what Clint and I had been looking for.

If someone had told me two months ago that I would find a brother in Clinton Francis Barton, I would have laughed in their face.

But now, I really couldn't bring myself to regret the way our relationship had evolved.


	16. 15: Black and Blue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for blood and some mild (and kind of accidental) violence.

**Chapter 15: Black and Blue**

I was reading. The story, a gripping thriller, had me absorbed to the point of forgetting the world around me as my eyes avidly swept over the words on the StarkPad. My mind was filled with images, black writing transformed into a colorful mind-movie.

Which was why the sensation of fingers dragging through my hair to rest against the back of my neck startled me violently. The touch was light, non-threatening, but I reached back nonetheless and gripped a warm wrist, nails digging in the give of the skin.

Once I was sure that the fingers could not harm me, I carefully looked over my shoulder, eyes meeting a smirk and pale piercing irises.

"Clint." I breathed his name, my voice carrying a sharp edge.

"Hey, Lexy! Can I get my hand back?"

"Maybe." But I loosened my grip and firmly brought his hand away from my neck. I didn't like to have a hand other than mine on my neck. It made me feel vulnerable, as if those unfamiliar fingers could wrap around my throat and force me down to my knees, force me into submission and… No. Just no.

Once he had gotten his wrist back, Clint came around the couch and dropped next to me. "You are too easy to take unawares." he commented almost absently, snatching the StarkPad out of my hands.

"Hey! I was reading that!" I snapped, reaching for the pad. Clint held it high and away and I rose to my knees, leaning forward to try to catch it. "Give it back!"

"Get it back."

He made me grasp uselessly at the air and tug at his arm for a good five minutes, making sure to keep the pad  _just_  out of reach. Every once in a while, my fingers would brush  _just so_  against the pad, taunting me but never close enough to get a good grip on it.

Finally, exasperated, I sat back and punched Clint's shoulder as hard as I could.

The resulting yelp was satisfying.

I used the momentary surprise to pluck  _my_  pad out of the archer's grasp.

"Thank you very much."

"Ow… You can pack one hell of a punch when you want to."

"Serves you right." I growled with no real heat behind it, actually feeling a little guilty. Punching an enemy was maybe okay, but a friend? "Okay, I'm sorry."

Clint – damn the man – smirked. "It didn't hurt that much. I probably won't even keep a bruise."

Oh, yeah, right. SHIELD agent. Tough, well-trained and pain-resilient SHIELD agent.

Said agent's hand itched toward  _my_  StarkPad and I curled protectively around it, hissing at the offending hand.

It startled a laugh out of the archer. "Alright!" He backed off with that annoying smirk of his – I really wanted to punch it off his face, right now – and leaned back against the cushions, all lazy and relaxed.

I did not trust his apparent lazy calmness one tiny bit and kept an eye on his hands.

"Well, you're easy to surprise, but you're at least naturally mistrustful. Not bad. We'll make an agent out of you yet."

Hello? Trained assassin? He had things I didn't know about up his sleeve. However, I kept that to myself and merely nodded with a soft hum that could be taken as an agreement. My attention returned to my thriller, quickly falling back into the plot.

Clint's hand reached for the pad again. I slapped it without turning my attention away from the story, eyes sweeping over the words.

"Hey, Lexy!"

"You stop calling me that and you give me a minute to finish the chapter. And just shut up."

It took a little more than two minutes, in fact, but once I had finished, I bookmarked the page and shut the pad off. "Now what?" My voice was sharp and edgy, but Clint had been kicking at my foot for the last minute and a half. I was allowed a little irritation.

"I've been talking with Natasha."

Several answers for that went through my head: _"Did you kiss her?"_ or  _"Have you both admitted that you're in love with each other?"_  or even _"And you fell in bed together afterwards?"_

I finally settled on a simple "About?"

"You and Vanessa."

I cocked my head. "Okay?"

"Well, if you are to stay here, with us, you might as well learn how to fight a little. You've already been kidnapped twice."

"That's not our fault." I grumbled.

"Might not, but you might have avoided capture if you had been adequately prepared."

I sighed, pride slightly wounded even if I knew pertinently that this was the truth, whether I liked it or not. When in danger, I was reduced to basic instincts that were not necessarily efficient.

I was kind of inoffensive, truly. And it pissed me off.

"So what? Natasha and you are ready to teach us how to fight?"

There was suddenly something sharp and predatory and  _dangerous_  in Clint's pale gaze. It made the skin of my neck prickle uncomfortably. "That was the idea, yeah." He then clapped his hands together and the loud noise made me flinch involuntarily. "Now, would you like to spar so that I can evaluate how advanced you are?"

_Advanced?_

I winced. "I'm animated by instincts and pure knowledge of place that hurt, Clint. And I don't actually want to hurt you." A raised eyebrow. I relented. "Okay, sometimes I want to bite your head off, but I'm naturally aggressive. I am not a fighter, however."

The archer's expression was a strange mix between his usual smirk and a frown. "I am your enemy on the ring, Alexanne. You're  _supposed_  to try to hurt me. And if you actually do, it's either luck or a very good move." He jumped to his feet and stretched, letting out a pleased groan. "Come."

"What about Vaness?" I asked, forcing myself to stand. My fingers twitched on the pad. There was uneasiness and the bitter taste of fright. I knew without a doubt that Clint wouldn't hold back as much as usual – not that we spared together often – and a part of me anticipated the pain.

"Find her once we're done with you. This way, you won't have a public watching you get your ass kicked."

It stung, but I nodded. "Fair enough. I merit applause if I get a good hit." I muttered. "I'll just grab a change of clothes and drop the pad in my room. See you in the gym."

*o*O*o*O*o*

Blood was dribbling down my chin. Mine, mostly, but there was some of Clint's too.

I flinched when Natasha crouched before me and started to wipe at the blood. A thin whine escaped me; confusion, pain and dizziness were blurring my thoughts.

Clint crouched too, fingers closed around his bicep as far as they could go. Blood was seeping through the gaps. "You actually bit me."

_Sometimes, I want to bite your head off…_

My tongue felt thick and everything tasted like copper and iron, but I managed to slur something comprehensible: "Well, you punched me for it, so I guess we're even."

The archer sighed. "I forgot to hold back for a second." He sounded genuinely sorry, which made me feel a little better.

"You did not miss her." Natasha commented and my face contorted in pain when she pressed against my throbbing jaw. I voiced a protest. "This will bruise."

_Of course, it will fucking bruise. It feels as if it's broken!_

I snorted, which was a bad thing to do because more blood splattered on the cushioned floor of the ring as a result. Oh well, it was already a mess and would be replaced before the next day. Tony would see to it.

Clint poked at the bloody mouth-shaped mark on his arm. "That definitely wasn't something I was ready for."

"You had me in a headlock. And it was in reach. So I bit. And it was a bad idea because my jaw is swelling and it hurts and I'm talking as if I was chewing through a pillow at the same time and have I mentioned that it  _hurts_?"

The archer frowned. "Yeah, you did. You need to put ice on it. I think you've got enough for today."

I grunted in agreement, holding the bloody rag Natasha had gifted me with against my mouth. The taste of blood didn't usually bother me, but right now, it was too much. My lower lip was split and I had bitten the inside of my cheek when Clint had punched me, resulting in the fountain of blood that now covered rag, floor, shirt and hands.

I looked like a bloody mess, no doubt.

_Ooh… Bad pun._

Unsteadily, the muscles of my legs protesting vehemently, I stood and walked to the edge of the ring, then slipped out. To add to the throbbing in my jaw, I was aching absolutely everywhere from the bruises I had collected and I was developing a nasty headache.

"I'm going to take a shower and grab some ice before I send Vanessa down."

I didn't wait for an answer before I exited the gym.

*o*O*o*O*o*

After a long hot shower that felt like heaven and left me pink and warm, I dressed in something casual that didn't rub to harshly against my bruised skin, forsook the idea of wearing socks, and got rid of the blood-soaked clothing.

I then hesitated between either finding Vanessa first or getting an ice pack for my jaw. The latter was now numb but for the occasional throb of pain.

It was those throbs of pain that guided my feet toward the elevator, then toward the kitchen. Ice was a must. Vanessa was probably in no hurry to get her ass kicked.

It was a surprise when I saw that I could apparently kill two birds with one stone. Ness was already in the kitchen, making herself a smoothie. She had her earplugs and was shaking her hips in rhythm with the music only she could hear. And so lost was she in her own world, Vanessa didn't notice when I snooped in the freezer to grab an ice pack, which I wrapped in a fluffy hand towel from my bathroom.

At first, the feel of the towel – even if it was very soft – against my bruised jaw hurt like hell, making me grit my teeth and taste blood again. But gradually, the ice numbed the pain and I prayed that it would help with the swelling too.

Once that was done, I let my gaze travel over the surrounding space while waiting for Vanessa to be done with her smoothie-making. Something caught my attention; a book, sitting on the edge of the counter. Curious, with the hand that wasn't holding the ice pack, I reached for the book.

It was big and it looked – and smelled – fairly new. My eyes scanned the summary on the back cover and widened when I understood what it was.

A book on mythology. Norse mythology to be exact.

There was a bookmark and I leafed through the pages until I reached the marked page.

_Well shit. Loki._

I then noticed that Vanessa had finished her smoothie and was looking at me weirdly, surprised and slightly irritated at the same time. She pulled the earplugs from her ears and snatched the book from my hand.

"Why are you reading this?" I asked. "We're not even sure if everything that's written in there is actually true. Hell, it's not. I remember reading somewhere that Norse mythology presented Loki with red hair, not raven black."

Ness shrugged silently. "He can change his appearance. Maybe he changed that." She then swiftly changed the subject, glaring at my numb jaw and the ice pack. "What is that for?" she asked coldly.

"Bruising and swelling. I spared with Clint for evaluation stuff. Natasha and him want to see you too, by the way."

My best friend eyed me disbelievingly. "I don't want to end up in the same state, you know…"

I blinked and smiled ruefully. "Oh, that's my fault. I bit Clint and he punched me in answer. I surprised him, I think."

"You  _think_?"

"Well, he momentarily forgot that wasn't supposed to give me more than a few stinging bruises. I think he reacted instinctively when I bit him. Can't fault instincts. Even less trained instincts." I shrugged. Sure, I hurt everywhere, but the outcome could have been worst.

Seeing Vanessa's obvious reluctance, I pulled out the argument. "They want to teach us how to fight, but they need to see where they have to start."

She visibly thought about it before she nodded slowly. "Okay, fine."

I would have smiled in answer, but considering my aching jaw, I settled on a nod.

"Your jaw is going to kill you, tomorrow."

I winced. "Don't I know."

*o*O*o*O*o*

Killing was an understatement, if that was possible.

I had woken up to a general feeling of numbness that radiated in my entire skull and that had morphed into pain while I was pulling a shirt on. A careful probe had found swollen skin and had caused a sharp spike of white pain.

Heading to the bathroom to grab painkillers, I had been faced with quite the horrifying sight.

It had been a shock. If you looked at my face, it was as if I had a broken jaw. The right side of my face – where Clint's fist had hit – was mottled black and purple and was so swollen that it was almost twice its usual size. My lower lip had scabbed and was some kind of brownish pink tint that wasn't very flattering.

Add to that the collection of scrapes and bruises I had gathered while sparring and I looked like a beaten woman.

I was a sorry sight and I think it kind of traumatized the Avengers.

I have to say, it hadn't looked so bad the previous day, during supper. Sure, Steve had pulled Clint aside for a while to "discuss" about "something" – I had no doubts as to who had been the "something" – and Bruce had advised me to put ice on my jaw fifteen minutes before I went to bed. But the area had been only red and slightly swollen.

Not the extent of damage that now showed.

And while Vanessa had a stiff gait and had collected her own fair share of bruises, she still looked far better than me.

"Fuck." Tony said eloquently.

I sat slowly on my chair and nodded, not daring to talk. The inside of my cheek ached fiercely and I feared that if I opened my mouth, the healing cut would start to bleed again.

Thor was analysing me thoughtfully, his food forgotten momentarily. I raised an eyebrow at him but he merely smiled and returned his attention to his place, as if he had gotten his answers already.

Bruce handed me an ice-pack wrapped in a clean hand towel, which I thanked him for with a nod and the biggest smile I could manage; it wasn't much more that a vague uplifting of the left corner of my mouth, actually.

"You look like hell." Vanessa commented. She was looking at me uneasily, visibly disturbed by the bruise. I rolled my eyes. "But you're silent for once." I glared at her and gave her the finger. I could get whatever message I had to say across without speaking.

Although, that was a lie since I apparently couldn't keep my mouth shut when there were people around. I turned to Clint – who was  _not_  looking at me – and asked the question that had been bouncing around my mind since the previous day:

"So… was I any good?"

It came out weirdly, as if my mouth was full of cotton balls, and the resulting ache was not welcomed. But I wanted to know if my fighting skills –  _if_  they could be called skills – were worth something.

"There is work to do…" Clint began, apparently fascinated by the table. It was becoming annoying.

"You are not fast enough; you think too much and have absolutely no method." Natasha cut in and ouch, that stung. "But you know that you're small and agile and you try to use it to your advantage. It's already a start."

I perked up a little at that. At least, I wasn't  _hopeless_.

"But Clint is right. There is work to do. The same goes for you." she added to Vanessa.

My best friend nodded silently, rubbing at what had to be one hell of a nasty bruise on her thigh.

"Try to be more careful, though." Steve said. I didn't know whether he was talking to Clint or me. Clint who wouldn't meet my eyes, no matter how much I glared at him. Annoyed, I childishly kicked him under the table. It was pure luck that I struck a sensitive spot, but I got what I wanted. The archer's eyebrows twitched, the only outward sign of pain, and he finally looked up to glare back at me.

Unimpressed, I crossed my arms over my chest.

"What was that for?" Clint hissed, the words barely audible under Tony's loud speech about an upcoming reception of some kind that Pepper Potts wanted him to go to.

"I had to get your attention, since you won't look at me! Jesus! It's nothing worse than bruises."

And they hurt like hell, and God, my jaw hurt even with an ice pack numbing it.

"Bruises or not, it's my fault if you look like that and I… I don't have to look at my artwork."

"Christ! I won't let you ignore me until the damn bruises fade away. They're here for a while. Quite a while if you look at their coloration."

Wrong thing to say. Clint suddenly became quite invested in his cereals and I had to kick him again – same spot, harder – to snap his attention back to me. Frustrated, I kicked him a third time, certain that it would leave a bruise. There, I had given him one to match mine. Could he stop being an annoying idiot now?

"Happy? You've got a bruise too. Stop being a jerk and act normal. It hurts, but I'm not holding it against you."

Silence.

"Clint, for heaven's sake…"

"Are you two done fighting? It's annoying."

I could have  _bitten_  Vanessa. My simmering anger upped a notch and I let out a low growl.

"Would you please mind your own business?" I snapped.

"Well, you're making it everybody's business by fighting at breakfast." she answered, brown eyes icy.

I bit my tongue to refrain from answering – I was fighting with Clint already, I did  _not_  need to add a fight with Vanessa on top of it – and started reciting the NATO phonetic alphabet in my head.

Clint muttered something about archery and disappeared.

_Fucking hell!_

I stood too, excusing myself in a way that was more growls than words, dropped the ice pack on the table, and then followed the archer.

If he thought he could run away, I had a surprise for him. I considered myself as a stubborn individual and we  _weren't done_.

"Clint!" I didn't even try to be discreet, just went for it; letting the anger flow a little, like lava in my veins.

He wasn't even shooting arrows. His bow was on the floor at his feet and Clint himself was poking at the mouth-shaped bruised on his arm. His pale eyes met mine – his were somewhere between pastel green and silver – and I felt the anger drain out of me.

Instead of loud, harsh words, what came out of my mouth was a soft and weary: "You're an idiot, you know that? We will get hurt. It comes with the "associating with the Avengers" package. That's why we have to learn to defend ourselves. That's why you and Natasha offered to train us."

"I still shouldn't have punched you. The goal is to transform you in apt fighters, not incapacitate you."

"You reacted, Clint. I can hardly fault you for that. And it could have been much worse. You could have killed me. I know that you are able to." I shivered a little. He could have. He had had the position to do it. He could have snapped my neck easily and I wouldn't have had the time to understand it.

Clint grabbed his bow and shot an arrow – dead center – before I could align my next sentence.

"Point is that I'm alive. Bruised, in pain, but alive. So stop your trip down to guilt lane and snap back to your usual self. I'm not a princess that you have to handle with velvet gloves, you know. I swear that I'll give you another bruise if you dare think that."

"You would make a nice princess. A cranky, snappish princess."

The comment struck me mute before irritation crept on me.

"Okay. Come here, you jerk, so that I can punch the daylights out of you."

The archer putted his bow down, rolled his shoulders and smirked at me.

"Come and get me."

By the time we stopped running around the archery range, I was sporting another dozen of colorful bruises and had managed to drop at least one good punch since Clint had a bruise blooming on his temple.

We were both laughing like maniacs – and my jaw would give me hell for that – as we flopped down side by side on the wooden floor.

"You're an idiot." I said again, breathlessly, because it was worth repeating. "And I'm an idiot too, because my jaw hates me very much."

"It probably hates my fist too." Clint commented. He turned his head to look at me and bumped his nose against mine.

I snickered. "I won't deny that."

We grinned like loons and started laughing again.

I was black and blue… and purple, and red, and yellow. And I looked like hell and I physically felt like hell.

But right now, I was happy.


	17. 16: Home?

**Chapter 16: Home?**

Two months went by, the cool spring giving way to what appeared to be a promising summer. At least, June brought more sunshine than rain and the comfortable warmth that had taken hold at the end of May became stifling by the end of June.

It figures that it would be on a hot sunny morning in the brightly lit kitchen that Tony would drop the words I had begun to hate.

"SHIELD thinks they have figured it out."

I snorted derisively as I handed him his cup of coffee. I putted a mug down before Clint – who hummed his thanks and smiled at me – and offered one to Natasha. She eyed the hot beverage, deciding if she needed one or not this morning.

She took it and thanked me with a nod.

I gave Bruce his cup of tea – he didn't even look up from his StarkPad, just reached out for it with an absent "thank you" – then went to the fridge to grab the orange juice. I poured a glass that I left on the table where Vanessa usually sat. She probably would be downstairs in the next fifteen minutes.

Showing an impeccable timing, Steve and Thor exited the elevator as I added two more toasts on the already unsteady pile of peanut butter sandwiches.

"It will fall." Tony affirmed, eyeing the tower of bread and peanut butter.

"No, it won't." Although I did keep a close eye on the dangerous dance of the pile as Thor grabbed his plate. Visibly, running had made the god quite hungry.

Steve was surprisingly panting a little as he dug in the fridge for a water bottle.

"You okay, Cap?" I asked in a low voice, grabbing the two toasts that had just come out to add them to the plate I had made for him. I spread jam on them, added a banana to the apple that was already waiting to be eaten, pushed the eggs a little bit to make some place. I then handed the plate to its undoubtedly hungry owner.

Steve tossed the empty bottle in the recycle bin and took his plate. "Yes, thank you. Keeping up with Thor was a little harder than I thought. His jogging is closer to a run for me. But a few weeks of this pace and I should be able to keep up with no difficulties." He grabbed the apple and bit into it. "Although… He apparently took it easy for me." He shook his head, then smiled. "Thank you for the breakfast."

I couldn't keep a brilliant answering smile off my face. "No prob. I was sure that you two would be hungry." My hand itched toward my own cup of coffee and I took a cautious sip. It had had time to cool and was now just perfect. "I think it's the first time I see you out of breath." I commented after a while, leaning against the table next to Clint.

The archer looked up at me, then at Steve, before shrugging silently. He knocked his head against my flank and I pushed him back with a muttered "Behave" that had him snickering. I shook my head at his childishness; my ponytail followed the movement briskly.

Steve didn't answer – not that the comment really necessitated an answer – and I leisurely trailed my eyes over his arms, his shoulders, up his neck until I was caressing his cheekbones with my gaze. I stopped staring before the super-soldier noticed, looking at Thor instead.

He looked… human. No extra arms, no weird-colored hair or skin, no additional appendages. Sure he was tall, and muscular and hot – I had eyes, thank you very much – but there was nothing in his exterior appearance that truly screamed "Look at me, I'm the God of Thunder" at first glance.

He still was adorably clueless sometimes and so eager to learn. The continuous contact with humans had changed him a little and I dare say for the best. He liked random stuff such as pop tarts (berk!) and popcorn and hoodies. He also had adapted to humans. He was a lot gentler – I hadn't gotten a bruise from a friendly pat in the last two months – and did such things as "taking it easy" for Steve, although the man was apparently capable of keeping up.

I had been staring for a bit too long. Thor raised his head and looked at me curiously, smiling. There was a spot of peanut butter at the corner of his mouth and I merely smiled in answer before I focused on my coffee.

A hint of golden-brown caught my attention and I greeted Vanessa with a light smile. She answered me with a grimace, limping because of yesterday's practice that had turned a bit rough. Clint and Natasha had been taking weekly turns between Nessie and me and we had both agreed on one thing: Tasha was making it harder than Clint. And she was the one training Ness, this week.

Although the archer had gotten round the fact that we needed to be toughened up a bit, he still watched his every move. Never again had I gotten a bruise like the one that had lasted for about two weeks. Not from Clint.

(I still had a healing bruise on my shin from Natasha, though.)

Natasha had made it very clear from the start that she would be teaching us how to avoid, how to be quick and deadly. And that  _she_  wouldn't be holding back.

I still remembered my first practice with a wince; I had spent more time on the floor than on my feet. Black Widow was fast and terribly efficient and only with tiring frustrating practices had I begun to be able to hold my own against her.

But even if I was becoming better – it still surprised me a little that I had developed real fighting skills – Natasha was still a far better fighter than I would ever be.

When I had first started those fighting "classes," I had almost given up on myself. Tears of rage at my own helplessness had been rolling down my often-bruised cheeks at the end of each training session and I had been the one ignoring Clint stubbornly, my wounded pride making me particularly disagreeable.

It was said wounded pride that made me go to the scheduled practices every two days. And whatever kept Vanessa animated had her doing the same thing.

And now, our stubbornness was finally showing results.

"Are you skeptic too when I tell you that SHIELD thinks they have figured it out?" Tony asked Vanessa, snapping me back to the present moment.

Ness raised an eyebrow. "They thought they had "figured it out" the four previous times too."

_My point exactly._

I had gotten to the conclusion after the first time SHIELD had tried that they couldn't control the Inter-Parallel Teleportation Portal – its pretty name. The IPTP had been evaluated as an extremely unstable device, following rules that nobody had figured out yet.

I sure as hell wasn't going through it to end up in another weird parallel. One time was enough. And if by the luckiest hazard we ended up in our original parallel, God knew where we would appear. In China? In the middle of the Pacific Ocean? Why not on the top of the Eiffel Tower while we were at it?

No. Way.

I was happy here. Sure, thoughts of our original parallel and what we had left behind sometimes had me feeling sick, but I didn't think much about that distant unreachable place anymore.

I was living in the "now" and the "now" was here. Sure, living with the Avengers was sometimes hard. They had missions here and there, attacks to prevent, other stuff to do. In the first months, Vanessa and I hadn't known what to do, hadn't known where we were supposed to be.

It had been about four months and a half since we had been teleported. We had settled down. I had started translating more stuff, both for SHIELD and Tony, and had gotten rid of my writer's block, my imagination once again flowing on paper.

Vanessa was working in an animal shelter that had agreed to take her even if she had not her diploma, so desperate were they for at least semi-qualified workers. It made her happy, but for the days when they had to put an animal to sleep. On those days, she would come home… back at the Tower subdued and tense with quiet sadness.

No words could be offered to make her feel better. Empty words of comfort were better left unsaid and she preferred to be left alone in the quiet of her room. One of us, usually Steve or I, would drop supper before her door, and we all gave her the space she needed.

When things we going well and we were all at home, supper was the best time of the day. With eight people sitting around a table, supper was usually a lively thing. First was to get everybody around said table and Tony sometimes had to be dragged kicking and screaming from his workshop (more like grumbling about unfinished projects, but the picture was amusing). Without forgetting Bruce who had quite a poor memory when it came to meals. If nobody went to fetch him, he wouldn't remember the hour until he emerged from whatever he had been working on, which could take hours.

Once everybody was around the table, the supper played itself out. Thor and Tony were both loud, although Tony was far more talkative. Clint had about no table manners – and I'm sure he did it on purpose, just to annoy Steve and me. Steve, who would try to keep a minimum of discipline at the table so that the whole eating-together thing didn't turn into a royal mess. Most of the time, he did manage to keep us sitting and to keep Clint's feet off the table. Sometimes, though…

Well, I could think of several incidents. Like last week's food fight.

Yes. Food fight. Apparently mature adults having a  _food fight_  worthy of high school students with nothing better to do. Believe it or not.

The room had been a complete mess… and awfully long to clean up.

It had started accidentally, in fact. Tony had been waving his fork around while explaining his newest improvements for his suit. He had stabbed at a small potato and said potato had just… taken flight.

To hit Thor square in the face.

And Tony and Clint, once the surprised had passed, had not been able to hold back a snicker, which Thor had apparently taken for a declaration of war. He had emptied his plate on Clint's unsuspecting head in answer.

Even Steve had not been able to escape or stop the resulting mess.

I was still thankful that we had not been eating spaghetti that day.

"Hey, Lil' Leaf! Are you even listening to me?"

Uh? Tony was waving in front of my face. My coffee was noticeably cooler in my hands and the hip that was against the table didn't appreciate the position anymore.

I straightened and blurted: "You were talking to me?" The question was quite stupid since it was obvious that  _yes_ , he had been talking to me. Clint apparently thought it was hilarious and I saw Vanessa hiding a smile in her empty glass.

Tony's eyebrows twitched. "I don't know what planet you were off to, but it's apparently far from here. I said that, although it might only be an attempt that will fail, Fury still wants you and Ness to go." The man had finally dropped the "Loch" after Vanessa had snapped at him for real.

I sighed loudly and looked down at my beverage. "Fine. It won't work – again – but fine. Hopefully, he'll eventually drop it and face the evidence. And anyway, Steve said he would give us some basic military training this afternoon, right?" I smiled at Cap, who nodded back.

Clint huffed playfully and bumped his fist against my throbbing hip. "You just want to escape training with me."

There was no real heat behind it, so I shot right back: "You are welcome to join us if you think you'll miss me so much."

The archer shook his head. "No, no, no! I wouldn't want to be in the way. Although, it might be funny to see you struggle with orders."

I winced. Give me a please and I would what you asked as long as it wasn't off my limits. I might whine and grump, but I would eventually do it.

Give me an order and we wouldn't be getting anywhere.

Steve eyed me thoughtfully – in other circumstances, I would have enjoyed the attention – and Vanessa rolled her eyes.

"Don't do that." I growled and my best friend shrugged.

"He's right."

"Hey, whoa, he's not entirely right!" I protested. "I will take orders for a good reason. But, hell yeah, if you order me to do something like the dishes, I'll put my foot down and ask you to rephrase that politely."

Ness was not convinced. "You're too stubborn to take an order without protesting, Alexanne."

Something flared. "Stubborn?  _I'm_  stubborn? Between you and me, you've got the hardest head, Vanessa. I can learn to take orders if I have to and my stubbornness has nothing to do with it!"

"Yeah, up until we end up in some kind of dangerous situation and you will refuse to take an order to do something stupid instead. I  _know_  you."

"Because  _you_  wouldn't go against an order if you had an idea that could save your hypothetical situation? Do I have to remind you that you don't like to take orders either?"

"Okay, that's enough. Alexanne, Vanessa, cut it off." Steve ordered sharply and I opened my mouth to tell him to,  _please,_  mind his own business, when the fact that this was  _Cap_  and that it was an  _order_  registered in.

My mouth snapped shut and I tried to remember what composed a molecule of caffeine.

Tony, who had moved out of the line of fire when we had started to fight, let out a snort. "You two are like…"

"I'd say an acid and a base." Bruce surprisingly cut in. "You are opposites that have a neutral middle ground on which is built your friendship. But sometimes, one of you will cross the line and make the other react."

I stared at him mutely, thinking that coming from a scientist, such a comparison would make sense.

"I usually say that we're worse than that, like fire and ice, but your interpretation is kind of nice." I answered.

"And I was going to say that you looked like two birds fighting for an empty bag of chips." Tony said.

Vanessa and I both turned to glare at him.

"I do not appreciate that image." I hissed.

"Me neither." Ness added, crossing her arms over her chest, fingers still wrapped around her empty glass.

Tony smirked insolently but Steve stepped in before the annoying genius could say anything else. "You should probably go before Fury grows impatient. Even if it doesn't work."

The "again" floated silently in the air and I looked way from the understanding look in the super-soldier's eyes. I was tired of all those false hopes… if they could still be qualified as  _hopes_.

I missed home, but then I would miss my place here if I were to go… home?

Was it even home anymore?

I rubbed a hand over my face and abandoned my half-empty cup of coffee on countertop.

"Alright, let's go."

*o*O*o*O*o*

The Inter-Parallel Teleportation Portal was still activated when we arrived. The difference between its activated state and its "dormant" one was that instead of looking like a shimmering silk like thing waving in a non-existent breeze, it swirled like an endless spiral and produced light when activated.

My stomach dropped in my heels at the sight of it and I nervously twisted my fingers in my hair.

Fury looked pissed – as usual – and greeted us with a "you're late" that didn't mix too well with my sudden nervousness. Surprisingly, I managed to get a good grip on my temper and refrained from answering.

Vanessa too was tense, eyeing the portal with the mistrust of a wild animal confronted with something threatening.

A guy in a white lab coat – a scientist of some kind, I guess – was chattering about time and stability and probabilities and other stuff I  _didn't_  want to hear about. What struck me cold, though, was the control they suddenly had over the thing.

Apparently, they had activated the portal seventy minutes ago.

And it was still under their control.

I recoiled. The movement was instinctive, an attempt to protect myself from the realizations crashing down on me.

We would be going… home. Soon.

But we had disappeared for months! How to explain what had happened to our magic-less world without sounding completely crazy? How to fit back in? How to fall back in a schedule we hadn't thought about in months?

_How?_

There was something painful growing in my chest. It was like a bubble of… something, expanding and pushing against cramped muscles and it hurt and it was suddenly hard to breathe. Relief was battling with crushing deception. My head was a jumble of thoughts and emotions and I wasn't sure if I was happy or stricken.

My legs were shaky, as if I had just gotten out of a roller coaster. I decided that I'd better sit before I crumpled to the ground like a puppet's whose strings had been cut.

I made my way to the wall, the only thing that wasn't a blur, and slowly sank to the floor.

I could hear a thing of what was being said around me. I guess that it probably was something important, but my ears translated English into that foreign babble I knew nothing of. A little annoying voice in the back of my head was muttering a continuous string of unrelated words that caused all those various emotions to mingle together and to create a complete confusion. But one thing was prevailing over them all:

Shock. Deep shock.

A thousand questions were swirling around my already over-flowing thought process. I couldn't answer half of them.

My eyes fell upon the source of my misery and my attention was caught in its swirling depths. With only a disinterested glance, the portal looked blue. But I could see silver and cloudy white and even rainbows where the blue was in fact more like water; dividing the inner light of the portal into seven mesmerizing colors that danced without a care for the outside world.

It was beautiful.

But God, did I  _hate_  the thing!

There were people moving around me, but my attention was on the portal and it stayed on the portal. A light touch on my shoulder disturbed me, but once I shrugged it off, it didn't come back.

We were going… home?

Was it even  _home_  anymore?

I tried to picture it; returning to my old life, going to university. Without being able to train with Clint and Natasha, without Tony's jibs... Without Thor's endearing hyperactivity, without Bruce's relaxing presence… Without being able to see Steve every day…

The little bubble of pain took even more place and I let out a weird sound that was halfway between a sob and a choking noise. My already fuzzy vision blurred and the world became entirely blue. A tear escaped, leaving a wet trail down my cheek that tingled. And my head finally decided that it was overloading and began to ache fiercely.

_Home?_

_Where is home? Here? In the other parallel?_

_In my own – confused, aching – head?_

"Hey, Alexanne."

There was a warm hand on my cheek, wiping away the free-falling tears.

_Oh God, Fury can't see me like this!_

I reached back and untied my hair so that I could let it fall over my face.

"You don't need to hide, Little Leaf. It's okay…"

Although it was supposed to be soothing, there was an edge of awkwardness in the words that made me snort.

Clint really didn't know how to deal with a crying woman… When had he arrived anyway?

I looked up at the man I had come to consider as a brother and, torn apart, I could only croak: "I don't know."

Maybe I should have been clearer. Clint frowned in obvious confusion.

"Don't know what?"

"Where home is."

His shoulders slumped. "Lex…"

"I don't know where I belong anymore!" I wanted to cry it out, let every single person in the room know what I was going through.

But it barely made it past my lips, a choked whisper that nobody heard.

"Could you hurry up a little? We don't know how much longer we'll be able to maintain the portal's stability." The scientist guy said and I wanted to punch him.

I didn't. I let Clint pull me to my feet and I hugged him tight, tears streaming down my cheeks.

_I…_

_I don't want to go._

"Don't say that." Clint's voice was muffled, his face pressed in my hair. It sounded weird, as if he was hissing it through his teeth.

_I said that out loud?_

The archer gently pushed me away – and the sound I produced was pathetic – and stepped back after dropping a brief kiss on my forehead.

I wanted to scream.

I didn't.

Vanessa too was tearing up. She was fighting to look stoic and ready to go, but her eyes were glassy and she hugged Thor with as much strength as she could. A tear rolled down her cheek when she released him and he smiled sadly.

Saying goodbye was easily the worst thing I ever had to do. I cried, unable to stop, as I hugged everybody.

Tasha, who smelled of something spicy and of leather and who made me promise that I would continue to practice; Bruce, whom I had not taken the time to learn to know properly; Thor, who hugged me lightly, as if I was breakable, but whom I hugged as tight as I could; and Tony, who was so surprised when I jumped to his neck to hug him.

"The Spanish translations for the Arc Reactor documents are in my room." I whispered to him. "And thank you for everything you bought for me."

"That was nothing."

He patted my back awkwardly, visibly not knowing what to say.

And then there was Steve, whom I hugged almost desperately, feeling myself shatter into a thousand crystalline pieces. His arms were strong around me, warm and comforting and I gave into the impulse of standing on tip-toe to press a lingering kiss against his smooth cheek. I gave into the impulse of a crush that was maybe more than a crush but that would never be reciprocated.

Finally, we were standing in front of the portal. Vanessa was clutching her book on Norse mythology in a white-knuckled grip. Her back was rigid and her gaze when she met mine had a faraway look that tugged at my already shredded heartstrings. I had a lighter grip on the portfolio containing everything I had written in the last four and a half months, but I was an emotional wreck.

I would probably be annoyed at myself for my over-sensitivity, later.

Right now, I was miserable and couldn't have cared less about later.

Just before the guys in the white lab coats gave us the go, Clint stepped forward one last time.

"It was really nice knowing you two." he told us.

I felt something thin slide in my empty hand and I closed my fingers tightly around it, holding Clint's gaze. His eyes were blue, a light intense blue, and it was the last thing I saw of the Avengers as we turned and stepped forward into the portal.

Pop! We were surrounded by swirling blues and rainbows.

Pop! I was lying on something soft.

Pop! The portal disappeared.

And everything went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Explanations - more or less clear (I tried) - about the IPTP will come in the following chapters. Now, while I did my Physics and Chemistry in high school, I'm not a scientist or anything, so it might NOT make sense. (It does in my head, but well...)


	18. 17: Dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is some French in this chapter. Translations are at the bottom.

**Chapter 17: Dream**

I woke up to sunlight streaming across my pillow and into my face.

Blinking lazily, I tried to clutch to my fading dream, although I knew that its hasty retreat to my subconscious would keep it just out of reach.

Sighing, I got out of my warm bed and stretched, delighting in the various pops in my back as my muscles woke up too.

I made a quick detour by the bathroom, looked around for my hairbrush and a rubber band, then went back in my bedroom to open the blinds completely and get dressed.

Today was Saturday and I didn't have classes. But I was running a little low on food, so a trip to the supermarket was in order.

My eyes fell on the cell number and e-mail of the cute guy I had met at the library yesterday. He had caught my eyes easily; tall, in shape (with very,  _very_  nice legs), spiky brown hair and deep blue eyes. A tentative smile had received a bright, amused one in answer and I had started a conversation.

We had eventually moved the discussion from the library to the closest Tim Hortons.

His name was Cedric. He was a runner (again; very nice legs) and had a passion for mythology and legends that I shared.

We had been getting along pretty well.

Which was why I couldn't explain the feeling of uneasiness that crept on me at the sight of the paper innocently pinned to the billboard over my desk.

Refusing to linger on it, I turned on my heel and exited my bedroom. There would be time for it later.

My plugged cell vibrated with an incoming text from Vanessa as I stepped into the kitchen to prepare my breakfast. Curious – it was quite early for my best friend, since she usually slept in during the weekends – I opened the text message.

_I had the weirdest dream ever. can't sleep anymore. :(_ _are you free today?_

I typed a reply.

_I have to shop for groceries, but I'm free this afternoon. Good with you?_

I had made myself a bowl of frosted flakes and was pouring milk on them when the answer came in.

_Cool. my dream was the craziest this time._

Not resisting the urge to rile her up, I sent her a teasing answer:

_Surely wasn't THAT crazy. You can't beat mine. 'Cause I had a weird dream too and it is probably crazier than yours. Sorry! ;)_

It took her a while to answer. I was grabbing my keys when my cell vibrated in my coat's pocket.

_Not this time_.

That didn't warrant a reply but it made me smile. Dreams were weird and hard to understand in general, but some sometimes seemed to be coming from the middle of nowhere or from another world entirely.

I blinked at my apartment, wondered momentarily why the position of my fridge was suddenly bothering me. It was too close to the kitchen table, and I momentarily saw stainless instead of white.

A shake of my head cleared the illusion, but parts of my dream of last night were coming back, fleetingly. They were brief and elusive, more like ghosts or memories than anything else.

I shook my head again and closed the door behind me, turning the key in the lock.

_Whatever_.

*o*O*o*O*o*

Montreal in the middle of March was cold. Cold, with your breath misting in the air and the snow crunching under boots made to resist the Canadian winters.

Even with small gloves and a pair of leather gloves pulled over them, my fingers were stiff and freezing as I clutched to my grocery bags. I couldn't wait to be back in the warmth of my apartment!

On my way upstairs – I lived on the third floor – I met my neighbor. There were four apartments here. Mine on the third floor, my landlady's on the first, one on the second and one in the basement.

The basement apartment's housed a guy I almost never saw – I couldn't even remember his name anyway – who spent far too much time on his computer.

Franz was my neighbor on the second floor and he was a violinist. In the first weeks, I had often told him as a joke that he was lucky I liked the sound of the violin or I might have bitten him.

We weren't necessarily "friends" but we got along and he sometimes invited me to listen to his latest composition, most of which I would have already heard through the floor. But well, I made efforts to be more social and this helped.

"Salut Alexanne!"*

I smiled. "Hé, Franz! Comment avance ton nouveau projet?"* I was already halfway up the last flight of stairs, so I put my bags down by my feet and leaned over the railing to talk to him.

"Ça avance bien. Je m'en vais rencontrer le gars qui a offert d'être notre bassiste. Il joue aussi de la clarinette à ce qui paraît."*

Franz and two of his friends were hoping to be the next big artists on the music market. They seemed to be starting well and they had been looking for a bassist for a few weeks. It seemed their patience and continuous research was about to bear fruits and Franz was visibly delighted.

For a short moment, my neighbor's smiling face was replaced by another's. Shoulder-length blond hair shortened to sandy spikes, brown eyes turned pastel green – or was it a pale blue tint? – and the smile took a teasing dip.

A blink and the image was gone, leaving only a joyous Franz in its wake.

"C'est cool! Tu m'en reparleras quand tu reviendras."*

"Sûr! À plus!"5

And he went down the stairs with a smile, whistling some Bach to himself.

Shaking my head, I grabbed my bags and climbed the rest of the stairs before going in my apartment.

Once divested of my coat, scarf, boots and two pairs of gloves, I put the groceries away, all the while wondering about those brief images that my mind kept conjuring up. The latest had me puzzling why I was daydreaming about Jeremy Renner.

He – or one of his characters – must have been part of my dream in some way.

It wasn't lunchtime, so I went to my bedroom with the idea of sitting on my bed with my laptop to type some short story that was swirling annoyingly around my head, insisting to be put into words.

First, I apparently had to do my bed, the one thing I had forgotten in my morning's routine.

I pulled the covers up neatly, smoothing the wrinkles with the back of my hand.

Something fell on the wooden floor with a light clattering noise.

_Did I forget my iPod in my bed?_

_What the…?_

There was an arrow on the floor. A long, elegant  _arrow_  with black synthetic fletching. Crouching, I closed my fingers around its thin shaft and peered at it intensely.

What was an arrow doing on my floor?

What was an arrow doing in my  _apartment_  in the first place?

With a strange easiness, I spun the object between my fingers. It has been quite a long time since I had last done some archery, but there was something familiar about the arrow.

It looked new. The metal head was in perfect shape, the shaft was smooth and the fletching was straight and whole.

I liked it.

A flicker of my dream.

_I was shooting arrows with a borrowed bow. I couldn't wait to get my own. The arrows were long, elegant, also borrowed from someone who trusted me with his/her possessions. The fletching was black and the whole thing made me feel strangely powerful._

_Even more so when I almost struck the bullseye._

The arrows in my dream had looked remarkably like the one I was twirling between my fingers.

I lightly trailed my lips over the fletching – it bristled and created a tingle – as I tried to remember more of my dream. I had a feeling it was suddenly important.

Sitting down and leaning back against my pillows, I couldn't explain the sudden longing that overcame me as I manipulated the arrow. It was a deep feeling and it tugged at my heart in a way that ached.

Frustrated, I rubbed a hand over my face and closed my eyes.

_What is going on? Where does this arrow come from? Why do I feel as if it's familiar? It's just a single, lonely arrow._

_Yet, I want to keep it… And I don't want to use it; I don't want to break it. I like it._

_Why?_

_And what was last night's dream about?_

I must have fallen asleep, for the next thing I knew, I was blinking my eyes open in a bright room.

A bright, white room.

_Oh fuck, not again._

I covered my eyes with an arm that felt sluggish and far too heavy for its mass and breathed deeply.

The air smelled foreign and chemical and that made me bolt upright in panic.

Bright, white, sterile hospital room.

What the flying fuck in goddamn heaven?

"Alexanne!"

I jumped, startled. My arm started to itch fiercely in answer, but I forgot it when I looked up in the direction of the voice.

Steve.

Oh. My. God.

Steve Rogers, Captain America, right there in the doorway.

I practically flew out of my bed in my hurry to ascertain that I wasn't hallucinating.

But I was stopped by the most agonizing rush of pins and needles that I had ever felt. I crashed to the floor with a loud cry of pain, fingers digging in my treacherous legs.

"Ow, ow, ow!"

Steve rushed to my side and picked me up – God, he was real; warm skin and strong muscles and a clean scent. He lowered me onto the bed and I would have clutched to his shirt –

_Don't go, please, don't go, it hurts and I don't know what's going on_

– but my fingers were already occupied.

"Fuck, fuck, holy shit!" I gritted out between clenched teeth, rubbing forcefully.

There was also a slight burning throb coming from my left arm and something wet on the skin of said arm but it was nothing beside the  _pain_  from the rush of blood.

"Wait. Alexanne, you have to wait for the circulation to come back properly." Steve said, his fingers coaxing mine away. He crouched, and then dug more gently into the skin to massage the awakening muscles. "You probably managed to cut your own circulation in your sleep."

I gritted my teeth and tried to endure in relative silence.

_What happened? Why do my – fuck, fuck, fuck, that hurts! Why do I have such a case of pins and needles?_

_And Steve… What happened? Why am I here? I don't fucking understand!_

_The portal. My apartment… Wasn't I in my apartment? But Steve… He's real. And this isn't my apartment, whatever parallel this is!_

"Where am I?"

The pain was fading, leaving behind the tingle and prickling sensation of  _normal_  pins and needles. I took a couple of deep breaths in, tension bleeding out of my shoulders until I felt about back to normal.

There was blood trickling down my arm and IVs by the bed. I could guess that I had managed to rip the needles out and that it had caused the slight damage that now showed.

I decided to ignore it for now.

"Where am I?" I repeated.

It was my first question, because I had to know. About nothing around me made sense anymore and the white room was painful to look at. I couldn't stand the sight of white walls anymore.

Steve's eyes were beautifully blue and very nice to look at.

"In the infirmary."

That I already knew. But I didn't know how to formulate what I really wanted to know and switched to another question.

"What happened?"

Cap frowned. "We were hoping you could tell us. The portal disappeared for about five seconds and when it reappeared, both of you were still there. You just collapsed and have been unconscious since."

"How long?"

"Almost a week."

"A  _week_?" That came out far louder that I had intended, but I couldn't take it back. "Wait, you said both of us…"

And indeed, there was Vanessa, lying in a bed identical to mine. She was still, lying on her back, her skin almost as pale as her pillow. Had the slow rising and falling of her chest not proved that she was alive, she could have been believed dead…

"But it just  _doesn't_  make any sense! I was in my apartment! I found an arrow in my bed!"

I marked a pause. My confusion and rising panic marked a pause too as I searched the object in question with my eyes, suddenly understanding where it came from.

It was Clint's and he had slipped it in my hand before I had gone through the portal.

I reached for the bedside table and my fingers closed around the thin shaft.

"Steve. I was back in Quebec, in my apartment." I said seriously.

It was becoming clearer in my head. What I had thought was a dream was reality, as real as my apartment had been. Now, two realities were apparently crossing each other confusingly.

"You haven't moved from this bed. Are you sure it wasn't a dream?"

I shook my head. "Fuck, no. No, it wasn't. Unless I've gone completely insane. It's all fresh in my memory, not blurred and undecipherable."

"Something must have happened when you crossed the portal." Steve said thoughtfully.

"But what? Surely this wasn't supposed to happen!" I slapped my palms against my temple and buried my fingers in my hair. "Jesus Christ! I wish that this had never happened! Or that they had never found a way to send us back!" I cried out, almost hoping that it would wake Vanessa and that she would tell me to get a grip on myself. I couldn't… it was too much!

Steve rose from the floor and sat beside me. I turned my face in his shoulder, trying to keep a relative control over my emotions.

I was doomed to failure.

I began to cry silently, burning tears wetting Steve's shoulder. A large hand hesitantly went up to drag through my hair slowly, comfortingly.

_What the hell is going on? For fuck's sake, why can't I settle down?_

_I was in my apartment! I spoke to Franz. I bought groceries. I found an arrow identical to Clint's in my bed. I didn't hallucinate! I'm not mad!_

_I can't make sense of my own life anymore!_

"Hey Cap, Tony told me I'd find you here. I've got – Alexanne?"

Mortified, I moved away from Steve and grabbed a pillow to hide my face from Clint, biting into the cotton furiously.

"Go away! Nothing makes sense anymore…" I choked out in the pillow, which absorbed the sound and transformed it into indistinct mumbling.

Steve stood. I produced a garbling sound of protest, but didn't move to hold him back. That would have required me to release the pillow I was currently using as a shield.

"Stay with her." he ordered Clint. "I have to talk to Fury."

"What's going on, Cap?" And how could Clint sound so  _normal_  when fucking _nothing_ was making sense?

There was a brief moment of silence, only broken by my hitching muffled sobs – and I annoyed myself enough that I begun to breathe deeply to stop crying.

Finally, Steve answered: "I don't know."

_Me neither, so we're all kind of screwed._

The bed dipped on my right side and Clint lightly touched my shoulder. I flinched involuntarily.

"You okay?"

"Do I look okay?" I croaked –  _very nice imitation of a toad, De Bellefeuille_ – turning my face toward the archer so that the words could actually be audible. I also glared at him, for effect, but since it was a rather wet glare, it probably wasn't very efficient.

"No, you don't." Clint conceded. "But you will, though. I mean, you haven't been unconscious long enough to miss any real stuff."

"Haven't had time to miss me yet, Barton?" The words were strained, but I smiled a little – a vague uplifting of the corners of my lips – to alleviate the slight bite.

"I did miss you and Nessie. It's a little unsettling when I arrive in the gym, ready to train either of you, only to remember that you're both unconscious." Clint smiled a real, honest, pleased smile. "But you're awake, now. It shouldn't take too long before Vanessa wakes up too."

I shook my head vehemently. Something was very wrong. It had  _not_  been a dream. I had really been back in my apartment.

"It doesn't make any sense, Clint! I was back in Montreal; all of this was some kind of blurry dream. Yet, here I am, awake after being apparently unconscious for almost a  _week_! Shit! How is this my life?"

As if surprised by my outburst, the archer observed me uneasily. "What do you mean, Lex? I swear, you haven't moved from here."

"Not my physical body, dumbass! Whatever's in there!" And I pointed the side of my head with a finger to illustrate my point. "What I mean is that I'm apparently suddenly switching parallels without needing that fucking portal!"

"Did you tell Steve that?"

"Not in so many words, but I did try to transmit the same message. I think that I did."

_Did I?_

My eyes fell on the arrow. I was holding it so tightly that I couldn't feel my fingers anymore. The thought of opening those white-knuckled fingers was painful, so I didn't. Yet.

"That thing travelled back with me. And it's still there."

"Yeah. You were still holding to it when you reappeared." Clint looked a little embarrassed.

I gritted my teeth, inexplicably angry. "Do you think Fury would hate me more if I killed SHIELD's dumb scientists for messing even more with my life?" I growled.

"Probably, yes. He was quite pissed off when you reappeared."

"Of course he was." I muttered. "And he'll be even more when I won't be able to give him answers as to what's happening."

*o*O*o*O*o*

I had soon been allowed out of bed and into clothes – jeans shorts and a kaki t-shirt – only to be ushered into a meeting that didn't reach any satisfying conclusion.

I had stick to what I had told Clint, putting in as many details as possible.

I almost blew Fury a fuse when he mentioned that the whole problem was maybe our fault. Vanessa and I! As if we  _could_  possibly be responsible for the situation we were in!

Ok, ok. So maybe not  _almost_. I exploded, told the great director of SHIELD to eat shit and left the meeting with a metaphorical slammed door – the effect was totally ruined by the silent, automatic sliding door.

I had been left alone for a blissful hour before Tony had found me spinning with his chair across his workshop, JARVIS having surprisingly granted me access.

"That was magnificent!" exclaimed Tony when he came in.

Dumbstruck, I stopped the spinning motion of the chair with a foot on the floor – and I was feeling slightly dizzy – and looked at him in incomprehension. "What was magnificent? I basically blew a fuse and told Fury to fuck off…"

"Exactly. I told Fury that forcing you through the portal when they still didn't know what it really did was a hell of a bad idea, but the so grand director of SHIELD ignored me. Look at the result!"

"Why didn't you stop us then?" I snapped, one hand reaching up to tug sharply at my own hair.

"Because I couldn't believe that those idiots had actually managed to gain some control over the IPTP. Which means that you suddenly had a chance to go home."

I shook my head furiously. That  _word_. Again and again, now painful and confusing instead of heart-warming and comforting.

" _Not_  home. Somewhere. I don't know where." I whispered, eyes wandering over blue screens without actually  _seeing_  what they were about.

Tony opened his mouth, shut it, and analysed me thoughtfully.

"Whiskey." he decided, which got him a rueful smile.

"Trying to get me drunk, Stark?"

"You make more sense when you start babbling."

Skeptic, I raised an eyebrow and crossed my arms over my chest. "Do I?"

The man smirked. "Not really. But it will make you a little cheerful. I can see those black clouds thundering over your head you know."

"Yeah, right. And I can see the gears spinning in your brain."

The whiskey was handed to me with a nod. "Oh, they're spinning alright. I'm trying to see how I can clean Fury's mess."

"The scientist's mess." I mumbled. "Dumb scientists. Bruce and you should have been the ones studying that thing. We might have avoided this weird situation."

I took a sip of alcohol, suddenly feeling very tired and dizzy. It burned all the way down, but the feel of it was lost in the sudden blur of the world around me until all I could see was blue, grey and a splotch of white where the couch had been installed.

Something was tugging. Tugging at my  _brain_ , if such a thing was possible.

"Tony, I don't feel good…" The words were soft and slurred. As if I was completely and utterly drunk… after drinking but a mouthful of whiskey. And I had a good tolerance.

Everything started spinning around me and I felt sick to the stomach.

"Hey, whoa, Alex–"

"–anne?"

I blinked my eyes open for the third time that day, frowning at the sight of the black decorative pillow shaped like a cat. I was also lying on something soft, far softer than a stony floor should have been.

"Come on, lazy bones."

And that  _wasn't_  Tony's voice.

I sat up in surprise and almost knocked my forehead against Vanessa's jaw. She had the presence of mind to step back before such an accident happened, though.

_Vanessa? Awake?_

_Wait… I'm in my apartment! In Montreal!_

_Tony? Steve? Wasn't there a meeting?_

"You're not sleeping enough." Vanessa commented. "It's two o'clock. I let myself in when you didn't answer after the third knock. Have you eaten?"

"Yes. No. How? No, wait… Fuck, what?" She had keys to my apartment, I reminded myself, as I had to hers. But still, where…? No, not where, why…?

My best friend frowned and touched my forehead with the back of her hand. "Are you alright? You look as if you had just seen a ghost."

_Ghost? No ghost? I'm just… shocked. Yeah, shocked. What the fuck is going on? My apartment, the Tower… Back and forth and back and forth… This is… I must be dreaming or smoething! Where is reality anymore?_

My fingers, which were unconsciously clawing at the bedspread, encountered a thin, solid object.

The arrow.

It was the fucking arrow.

This… This was  _Clint's_  arrow.

And it didn't belong it Montreal.

I raised my head to look at my friend. She was confused, to say the least.

"Why are you sleeping with an arrow?"

I swallowed. "It's a gift."

She frowned at me. "From who?"

I shrugged, bit my tongue. Then looked at her intensely. "What did you dream about?"

"What?"

"Your weird dream. What was it about? Tell me."

She sat down, smoothed the covers. "It's funny, because you were in it and I dreamt that we had met the Avengers. For real."

"Shit."

"What?" She was slightly offended.

"It's  _not_  a fucking dream."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> French Translations:
> 
> 1- "Salut Alexanne!" - "Hi Alexanne!"
> 
> 2- "Hé, Franz! Comment avance ton nouveau projet?" - "Hey Franz! How is your new project coming along?"
> 
> 3- "Ça avance bien. Je m'en vais rencontrer le gars qui a offert d'être notre bassiste. Il joue aussi de la clarinette à ce qui paraît." - "It's going well. I'm going to meet the guy who offered to be our bassist. He apparently also plays the clarinet."
> 
> 4- "C'est cool! Tu m'en reparleras quand tu reviendras." - "That's cool. Tell me more about it when you'll be back."
> 
> 5- "Sûr! À plus!" - "Sure! See you later!"


	19. 18: Nightmare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: There is more swearing than usual. And for some not-really-scientific babble (I have about no idea what I'm doing with the science side of that story, lalalala!).

**Chapter 18: Nightmare**

I had absolutely no sense of time anymore.

No. Fucking. Sense. Of. Time.

It just seemed to spin by me, like a comet that left a burning sparkle in its wake, taunting me by its constant presence but never allowing me to catch it.

I was continuously awake. For when I went to sleep in one parallel, I would wake up in the other. I had one mind – my mind, my thoughts, myself – shared between two bodies that were supposedly both mine. The lack of rest was slowly driving me completely crazy.

And Vanessa had soon begun to have the same problem.

The biggest problem, though, was  _time_  itself. It evolved differently in each parallel. About a week went by in the Avengers' dimension for each twenty-four hours in our original dimension.

Trying to manage two completely different lives at the same time was quickly driving me into a deep, endless pit of darkness. I would blow a fuse for a 'yes' or a 'no' and spend an awful number of hours just crying and hoping for mercy on my restless mind. Sometimes, I would just end up in a somewhat insensible state, looking in nothingness as my thoughts swirled around my head, butterflies imprisoned in a jar without air. I was losing sleep in one parallel, losing days in the other.

I was getting tired of waking up.

I had tried things. I had tried going to bed sooner both to get more sleep and to lose less time in the Avengers' parallel. I had tried resisting the call of sleep.

By far, resisting was the one thing that worked the best. Copying Tony's sleeping habits was however taxing on my body. It would sometimes just say "fuck off" to my protesting brain and drift off. Caffeine helped, but not for extremely long.

Simply put, I was tearing apart at the edges and about nothing could ground me anymore.

It was enough to drive a strong man to tears.

In my case, it was  _destroying_  me.

*o*O*o*O*o*

"You put us in this mess! You  _have_  to make it right again!" I shouted, standing abruptly with a hand slamming down on the table. My nerves expressed their protest, which I ignored.

The scientist who had been droning gibberish that I could barely decipher looked at me and blinked owlishly.

"We have been working on that for the last weeks, Miss De Bellefeuille. While I understand your distress…"

"You  _don't_! You don't fucking know the hell Vanessa and I are going through! You said yourself that your readings show that this…  _thing_  is tearing a hole into the…" I gestured helplessly.

"Call it the space-time continuum." Tony proposed lightly.

"Fine. Into the space-time continuum and that such  _instability_ ," I spat the word, coating it with as much venom as possible, "would eventually  _kill_  us!"

"We are not certain of that yet. It is but a hypothesis…"

"Tabarnak!" Swearing felt good. "Are you fucking  _kidding_  me? If this hypothesis of yours is, by some miracle, wrong, we'll die anyway from something else! This… This is driving – I can only speak for myself here, but still – this is driving me crazy! You have no idea what… what goes through my mind sometimes! I want… I'm losing control, here! For real! It's not going to be a little blown fuse that I can sweep under the carpet! I'll be driven to fucking stupid actions and won't give a shit about the stupidity of them because I won't know what else to do! My life isn't even  _mine_  anymore because I'm living in two different universes at the  _same time_!" The last words were as close to a scream as they could get.

Clint was wincing not so subtly, Tony's expression was grim and Steve – who had surprisingly let me yell at the scientist without intervening – had gone a little pale. And Vanessa, when I looked for her, wasn't there, still asleep here, still awake in that other parallel. Our different sleep hours meant that we were rarely awake at the same time in this parallel.

The room was eerily quiet. I fought down – with difficulty – the urge to scream and hit the table until my knuckles bled, instead glaring as darkly as possible toward the now mute scientist who kept blinking and blinking and…

_Holy shit in mother heaven! Will he just stop?_

He finally squirmed on his chair and turned a questioning look toward a glowering Fury.

"If you are done with your little temper tantrum, maybe we could listen to the rest of doctor Phelps' explanation." the director of SHIELD said in a low growl.

The words struck me cold. Very,  _very_  cold. My anger went past the 'furious' point right into the 'rage' zone and I grew very still. My jaw clenched to the point of pain.

"What did you just say?" My voice was terribly calm, just like the eye of a hurricane. A moment of peace and quietness in the middle of a terrifying storm.

_The hurricane Alexanne._

My own humor was lost on me.

Still standing, frozen into a position that had my fingers turning white on the edge of the table, I repeated my question slowly, clearly.

Icily.

"What did you just say? My 'little temper tantrum?" I went almost a pitch higher on the last word.

_Temper tantrum? That was no temper tantrum._

_I just exploded._

_Does he need more explosions? I can give him more explosions. Very nice explosions. Red and black and blue, until they'll have to forcefully restrain me._

_Until they'll have to sedate me._

_Brr… Needles. Might be worth the expression of Fury's face, though._

' _Temper tantrum'… How dare he? I'm not a fucking two-year old child! I'm just very much pissed off, thank you very much!_

_And I have a good reason to be pissed off, don't I? They're ruining my life with their damn teleportation device! I didn't ask for this!_

The silence in the room was heavy with tension. I could almost feel the air crackling, as if filled with the kind of electricity that surrounded Thor whenever he came back from a battle.

But it didn't come from Thor, this time. It all came from me. My tension, my wild electricity, my rage.

I eyed the knife that Natasha had put down on the table, thinking about the time necessary to lunge for it, then drive it through Fury's shoulder. Or the scientist guy's…

Either way, I wanted to cause  _pain_.

_Physical pain… It won't be enough. It has to be enough. They don't understand. Nobody understands this_ nightmare _!_

Cause pain. Not kill.

_Temper tantrum?_

Hurt. Bite, claw, rip apart… The way I was being torn apart into pieces, the way I was being destroyed. Until all that would be left of me would be pieces of imagination scattered on loose sheets of paper.

_And whose fault will it be? SHIELD's scientists and that fucking IPTP._

A warm hand fell on my shoulder and I jerked, one hand unclenching from the table's edge, fingers digging like claws into the soft give of skin.

There was a soft hiss of breath and then:

"Alexanne, you have to calm down."

_Bruce. That's Bruce's voice._

My fingers dug deeper, a twitch, and Bruce exhaled slowly, his breath stirring my hair and brushing against the skin of my neck. I shivered.

The hand that I was harming –

_Blunt nails, deeper and deeper… It won't bleed, it won't break…_

– clenched briefly on my shoulder. Bruce's thumb started to rub gently and I shivered again, relaxing in the touch slowly.

"Breathe deeply." he instructed, voice calm, deep, centering. His other hand came up to guide me away from the table, coaxing, not pushing.

My claws twitched again, wanting to harm still, even as I let myself be taken away.

_Little temper tantrum! As if I was nothing but a child!_

Toward the door, out of the room. The scientist – doctor Phelps, right – started speaking again before the doors closed and I spun on my heel, seeing red –

_Than damn useless bastard! I'm going to show him! Show him what I'm going through! Bleeding from the inside, drowning in darkness, choking on your next breath each time you wake up! Never meeting the blissful abyss of rest!_

– but Bruce was in the way, brown eyes rooting me on the spot as they flickered with green.

My grip went slack, hands falling limply at my sides. I swallowed convulsively, fear twisting itself in my gut alongside the churning rage, and I backed off a little, instinctively.

"Don't be angry." I murmured. My voice was rough and I was trying to swallow the urge to go back into the room and drive a knife through someone's shoulder. I flinched when Bruce raised a hand and took a few more steps back.

"Don't be afraid, Alexanne. I won't Hulk out on you. But your tension is palpable and it's stressing him out."

_Tension._

_Temper tantrum…_

"They don't understand!" I cried out, rage like a fiery flower as it bloomed in bright, burning sparks. "They just don't understand! They treat it – treat me – like an interesting development in the mystery of that damn portal! I'm not part of an experiment, Bruce! I don't want to be part of an experiment and I don't want to die!"

" _It is slowly tearing a hole in the connected parallels and is upsetting their balance. Eventually, they will naturally try to regain said balance by destroying the source of the instability. Simply put, this will eventually kill Miss De Bellefeuille and Miss Poirier…"_

Those words… had struck me down.

_Down… Down into the darkness of my own imagination. Picturing the worst scenarios possible. Being faced with a death I can't control or meet by my own fault._

"I don't want to die!" I choked out in a scream that echoed around the empty corridor. "I'm twenty-four… twenty-five… Oh my God!"

I crashed to the floor and fisted bunches of my own hair. I had turned twenty-five in this parallel – the party had been absolutely amazing – but was still twenty-four in the original parallel.

As if things weren't already complicated enough!

Bruce crouched before me. "Breathe, Alexanne. Slowly. Deeply. You have to calm down. Anger won't help you. Breathe."

I drew a rattling breath in – choking on sobs, anger and despair – and coughed it out. My throat burned as I repeated the process, following Bruce's instructions.

_Breathe in, hold five seconds, breathe out. Slowly, steadily… Repeat. Again… And again…_

Eventually, he patiently got me to release the painful grip I had on my hair. He made me sit properly and I eventually managed to breathe relatively calmly, rage dulled to a little painful ball of helplessness that I couldn't get rid of.

Sometimes during the process of calming down and getting a grip back on my wayward emotions, I had modulated my breathing on Bruce's steady one.

"Better?"

I opened my eyes slowly, blinked, and nodded once.

"Yeah, thanks. I feel somewhat less murderous."

Bruce offered me a small smile.

Some time went by in silence. I leaned against the wall and looked up at the lit ceiling.

"I can't pretend I know what you're going through." the man sitting in front of me said. "But I know what helplessness feels like and, believe me, anger isn't the way to fight against said helplessness."

I sighed deeply. "It's so easy, though. Getting angry. A spark and poof! I'm on fire."

He nodded. "I know. But you have to believe that they are doing everything they can to remediate to the situation, Alexanne. You have to hope."

"They were those who put me and Vanessa in this mess in the first place, Bruce. This situation is stagnating. They're stuck. The best they can do is to try to understand what really happened in the first place." I rubbed a hand over my face. "I just… don't want to die. I just want to live one life, in one world. Is that too much to ask?" I whispered.

"The ceiling was bright. I drew invisible patterns in black with my eyes, marring that brightness with the darkness in my heart.

"The question no one is truly able to answer is  _why_  this happened. Why us? Why in these parallels?" I murmured softly, gaze leaving the still unmarked ceiling to look at Bruce.

His eyes were brown, without those dangerous flickers of green.

_Calm. In control._

I sighed again and looked away, toward the end of the corridor.

"You'll have to ask Tony after the meeting if they discovered anything else."

I hummed vaguely.

_God. I really went mad. Can't believe that I actually wanted to cause_ pain _so much._

I peered at Bruce's hand. My marks left by my fingers stood out vividly, red crescents printed into the skin. A trickle of shame slipped in the back of my mind and I glanced down at the 'weapons' that had created such marks out of anger.

Out of fear.

Blunt fingernails.

_How did I manage to hurt Bruce with these? I have pointy fingers, but I keep my nails trimmed so that I don't scratch by accident, be it myself or someone else. And how come I hurt him instead of those who deserved my anger?_

The door opened and I looked up, meeting Clint's pale gaze, then Natasha's subtle concern; an eyebrow rising in a silent question. I gave her a brief nod, which she answered with a nod of her own before moving past me and down the corridor. Clint hesitated, but I shooed him away with a jerk of my chin toward Tasha.

_Go._

His fingers brushed against my temple as he followed her and I pressed into the touch briefly. Next was Thor, who smiled gently and gave me a light pat on the shoulder, then Steve, who frowned when he saw me sitting on the floor.

"Everything alright?"

I hummed softly and hugged my knees to my chest, dropping my chin on them. "Yeah. Thanks to Bruce."

"A little bit of meditation helped." the man in question said.

Steve nodded. "Thank you for taking care of that, Bruce." To me, he said: "Maybe you should do more meditation. It might help."

Suddenly drained – which always happened whenever I lost control over my emotions – I shrugged. "Yeah, sure. I guess it's better than nothing."

It might help my temper, all things considered. And might allow me to avoid those awful meetings with Dr. Whitelaw. I had been forced to go to her office each time I woke up after the beginning of the 'problem'.

"You'll teach me?" I asked Bruce.

He looked a little perplexed. "I'm still pretty new at this too, But yes, if you want to, I could help you."

I smiled. "Does that mean that I can stop meeting with Dr. Whitelaw? It's not her fault; she is highly professional and good at her job – I guess – and everything… It's just useless."

Steve shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest and I had this sudden feeling that this was more Captain America than Steve Rogers. "Alexanne, she's trying to help you."

"Highlight ' _trying_ '. That's not the point. The point is that I can't seem to make anyone understand that it  _doesn't_  help! A part of my mind really wants to be helped, but the other part has no idea as to how talking and listening is helping me. I don't feel any better when I get out of Dr. Whitelaw's office." I huffed and dragged my fingers through my hair restlessly. "It doesn't help. And you know what? I'll just stop going. I'm wasting her time, I'm wasting whatever time I have left and… I'm just getting worse. Not better."

"Alexanne…"

" _Steve._ " I raised a hand and glared fiercely at him. "Don't. Just don't. I made my decision. I'll deal with the consequences. I'll try to see if meditation helps."

Tony finally exited the room too and I jumped to my feet, almost knocking my head into Steve's chin in the process. Reaching out, I stopped the genius with a hand on his arm.

"Tony! Have they finally understood what happened?"

He winced. He honestly  _winced_  and looked at me with a weird look that was wary and weary and that had a hint of  _pity_.

"Yeah. And you're not gonna like it."

My shoulders slumped. "Will there ever be good news?"

Tony shrugged. "I can't tell you that. But come. I'll tell you what you missed." And he turned on his heel to head toward the elevator.

I followed, dragging my feet. Steve's gaze lingered on the back of my head.

*o*O*o*O*o*

We were both sitting on the white couch in the workshop. A bottle of whiskey was sitting on the low table before the couch, easy to reach. Tony was already sipping from his glass, but I was playing with mine, staring at the patterns that kept and disappearing in the alcohol.

"Okay. So… yeah, they reached some kind of conclusion as to what happened. They probably won't ever be a 100% sure, but it kind of makes sense."

"Just skip the scientific part of it, 'kay? Just give me the plain, hard facts." I requested. Tony wouldn't sugar-coat it.

He nodded. "As you already obviously know, the IPTP teleported you on February 17th."

I snorted and made a vague gesture.

"The thing is, since you previously didn't exist in this universe, the portal created a duplicate."

My mouth dropped open. "S'cuse me?"

"You kind of… doubled? Your original self stayed in your original parallel and a copy ended up here. Or the contrary, that's not clear."

"The contrary." I breathed, although how could I know?

"Yeah, well… When they tried to send you back, since there was nothing to create, the portal kind of fucked things up and created a hole to allow the transfer of your mind from one body to the other. From one parallel to the other, you know?" Tony frowned. "It sounded clearer when explained scientifically…"

"Don't care. I got it."

"Right." He shot me a side glance. "That's not the worst thing, though." The genius peered intensely at his drink and I shifted uneasily. There was worse?

"The portal began to fluctuate strangely. We've arrived to the point where everything tries to regain its balance."

I stared at him uncomprehendingly for a few seconds.

Then, it dawned on me.

_Oh God, I'm going to die._

"How long?"

Tony shut his eyes and shook his head. "They're not sure. It can be a few days. Or only a few hours."

_That's the end of the fucking nightmare? Death?_

Feeling very,  _very_  sick, I squeezed my eyes shut and downed my glass in one go.

It  _burned_  all the way down.

I asked for a StarkPad, wrote a couple of messages that I asked Tony to send to everybody when I would…

_Die._

_Oh God._

I wasn't sure how much I drank, but eventually, I slipped into blissful ignorance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have questions about what I'm trying to explain (it makes sense in my head, but it has been proved that my head is a weird place), feel free to ask away.


	20. 19: White Shards

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I talked to She-Wolf-by-Heart before I wrote that one because I needed her consent on the ideas coming up in the next chapters.
> 
> This chapter is kind of divided into two parts. The somewhat funny part and the... bad part.
> 
> Warnings for: Abuse of "Oh God". Swears (not that this is a novelty). And Tragedy. I'm serious. Sit tight and be warned.

**Chapter 19: White Shards**

I came into awareness slowly, at first unsure as to what had woken me.

As my vision cleared, realizations started to sort themselves in my head.

The first thing that I noticed, strangely enough, was that my pillow smelled… weird. It didn't smell like  _my_  pillow at all and I decided grumpily that it needed to be tossed in a washing machine and that I probably needed to wash my hair.

The second thing came when I stretched a little. I was aching pleasantly in a couple of different places and not so pleasantly in others. My right shoulder was itching and when I scratched it, it started to hurt instead.

_What the heck?_

The third realization of the morning crept on me  _painfully_. I had a splitting headache, the kind that started in the back of my skull and radiated to my eyeballs. I was feeling slightly queasy and wasn't sure that sitting up would… well, sit well with my stomach.

_And I shouldn't be playing with words when my head hurts that much, damn…_

But even the migraine became a background problem when I understood that I wasn't alone. There was a warm arm thrown casually over my waist.

A naked arm thrown over my very naked waist.

Slowly, I peered over my naked shoulder – and fuck, I was completely nude – to see the face of my bed partner.

"No. Way!" I shrieked, sitting up abruptly. I grabbed the pillow to deliver a good whack on the dark-haired head.

Tony –  _Anthony fucking Stark_  – sat up too with a noise of protest, arms rising defensively to protect his face.

I kept on whacking him furiously, distantly aware that I probably wasn't hurting him much.

"Couldn't you keep your fucking hands to yourself? And what the hell are you doing in my bed, you damn pervert?"

"Hey, hey! Whoa, stop it! It's  _my_  bed, not yours! And it was only sex! We were drunk! Alexanne, calm down! You're making my ears ring…"

I was making my headache worse, so I stopped yelling and cursing and simply alternated my hits. Head, chest, arms and back were all whacked by my 'weapon' in random patterns. Eventually, Tony started to laugh, which only pissed me off and made me put more force behind the movements.

Then, of course, unable to endure such abuse, the pillow  _exploded_.

…Well, truly, it just ripped at the seams, but the subsequent storm of feathers made it look like an explosion.

I dropped the ruined pillow and looked in wonder at the hundreds of fluffy white feathers covering the bed and part of the floor.

"Uh… Oops?"

Tony picked a handful of feathers and rubbed them in my hair. "You just made a mess." he commented, smirking as I batted his hand away and offered him one of my best glares.

How come it hurt so much to  _glare_  all of the sudden? Thinking was already a painful necessity, but the only time I stopped thinking was when I slept.

And even then…

"I'm sorry?" I tried unconvincingly, tugging the small feathers out of my hair.

"You destroyed a good pillow." Tony eyed me warily. "You're done with your little freak-out, sugar?" I snarled at him for the pet name. "Come on, it was just sex!"

I groaned, cursed under my breath, and buried my face in my hands before deciding that my hands could have a better use; I started gathering the bed linens to cover myself. Once I felt a little less exposed, I glared at Tony again, ignoring the spike of pain it caused.

He huffed and shrugged. Then, his eyes took a mischievous glint. "Oh, come on, don't tell me that you were a virgin!"

"What!? No! I'm twenty-five for fuck's sake, I had sex before! It's just…"

"If you're worried about your performance, I'd say that you were pretty good. Although, you have a tendency to bite hard."

I spluttered and punched his shoulder. "Shut up! That's not what I wanted to say!"

"If it's to tell me that it was awesome, I know. I'm a sex god." Tony said smugly.

I punched him again. Hard. His hand came up to rub at what would be a sore shoulder. "Shut up, Stark! That's not… Just how much did we drink last night? It's all freaking fuzzy and… I think I have a hangover."

I was starting to have vague recollections of the previous night. There had been… bottle _s_  of whiskey involved and Tony had smelled of metal, sweat, caffeine and… heat?

The genius thought about it. "Two… No, three bottles of whiskey. Although we barely drank from the third one. Girl, I have to say, you can hold you alcohol pretty well. You drank more than me!"

_Ouch… No more yelling, not from me, not from anybody else…_

I sighed and pressed my fingers against my temples, rubbing to try to alleviate the pain. I breathed deeply to swallow down a sudden nausea.

"Just… who kissed whom?"

Tony got that annoying analyzing look of his. "How much to you remember, exactly?"

I closed my eyes, tried to sort through the blurry memories of last night. Or early this morning, for all I knew. "Not much. I recall that I drank far too much alcohol far too fast but… What happened afterwards is really reduced to colors and random sounds." I peered at him. "What do  _you_  remember?"

He flopped down on his back again and stretched his arms over his head. It's not that Tony was a bad-looking man. He was lean, muscled in the right places, tanned… and I always had had a soft spot for short facial hair.

I still would have preferred to avoid ending up on Stark's long list of one night stands, seriously.

There was a purple bite-shaped bruise on his collarbone.

_I did that?_

"I remember more than you. The funny thing is that I was telling you about my latest improvements on the suit and you just climbed into my lap, told me to shut up and kissed me. Not a bad move."

He nodded to himself, as if impressed.

"Shit."  _I_  had kissed Tony, not the other way. I couldn't remember that part. I couldn't even pinpoint what had really pushed me to kiss him. Boredom? Annoyance? Loneliness?

_No. I'm not_ that _lonely_.

Still… "And of course, you kissed back."

The annoying man smirked. "I just went with the flow, Lexy."

" _Stop_  calling me Lexy. I don't like it and you bloody know it." I picked at the feathers, still pissed off. My head was aching more and more by the minute. My eyes hurt too. "You should have pushed me away instead of 'going with the flow', Tony."

The smirk finally slipped off his face, replaced by a frown. "It was just sex, Alexanne. No ties, no effusions of flowers, no poetic declarations of love." He winced and looked up at the ceiling. "Really nothing but a fun night of rolling around."

I snorted. "That's not the point."

" _What_  is the point then?" There was a hint of annoyance in his voice now, as if I was making his life difficult.

I twirled a feather between my fingers, studying its coloration. White. Just plain white. There was some thick in my throat when I answered:

"The point is that I  _don't_  remember! And it pisses me off because there's a sudden, empty hole in my memories!" Although I wanted to shout, I didn't. My headache was bad enough as it was, so the words came out as a harsh whisper instead.

Tony relaxed. I hadn't even noticed that he was tensed before his shoulders slumped.

"Do you get the point now?" I croaked, fisting the bedspread. I tugged it up to cover my chest where it had slipped down.

"Oh, I get it. Your problem isn't that we had sex. It's that you can't remember what happened and that you don't like losing your inhibitions. You," Tony poked my shoulder, "are a control freak. Mainly over yourself, but control freak nonetheless."

"Tell me something I don't know." I muttered. I rubbed the shoulder he had poked, annoyed at the sting such a little gesture had caused, and peered at the skin.

There was a purple bruise, matching the one Tony had on his collarbone. "You bit me."

"Payback."

I shrugged. My eyes wandered over the bedspread. In the dim lighting, the white feathers looked translucent, like hundreds of blunt glass shards. The sight of them inexplicably bothered me and I looked up and away, toward the darkened windows.

"JARVIS, what is the temperature presently?"

"Sunny with some clouds. The temperature is 24 **°C** /95° **F**." the AI dutifully answered.

I winced and rubbed my forehead as if it would magically dissipate the headache. "I'm not sure I want to face sunshine…"

_Why the hell did I drink so much?_

_Oh, yeah, the fucking IPTP…_

_Whoa… wait a minute!_

Two things dawned on me simultaneously. The first was that I was inexplicably still  _here_  instead of waking up in the other parallel.

The second was that I was quite obviously  _not_  dead.

"Tony?" I sounded weak and hesitant and about as traumatized as I could get, but I put it on the shock of… well, being  _alive_.

"Yeah?" He, on the other hand, sounded breathless and amused.

_The bastard. He waited for me to understand._

I couldn't be really angry, though.

"I'm alive."

"Yeah. You are. Those guys visibly got something wrong!"

I bent forward until my forehead touched the scattered feathers, fisting a bunch of them tight until I could feel them break in even smaller pieces. The tips were pricking my fingers, little shards trying to slip under my skin. I was suddenly feeling a little too hot, my mind on fire.

"They got something wrong." I repeated slowly, blinking at the white translucent mess. The strong wave of relief that hit me resulted in an answering strong wave of nausea that I forcefully swallowed down.

I let out a strangled high-pitched giggle and breathed noisily through my nose. The next thing that came out was a sob and tears and I clutched at my sides. Tony silently reached out to rub my back and his hand was warm and his fingertips were callused and I really couldn't remember fuck all about the previous night and I was still  _alive_ …

_I'm alive. Alive, alive, alive…_

_I'm fucking alive. I didn't die; the fucking IPTP didn't kill me. I'm still here._

_I'm still at home._

_Home? Home._

_This has become_ home _. My home. My friends._

_My home._

_Holy shit, my head_ hurts _!_

"Sir, the Captain requests your presence in the living room immediately." JARVIS' voice cut through my thoughts.

"I'll be down in ten. Come on, Lil' Leaf, let's make everybody happy."

Tony slipped out of bed – I adverted my gaze, glared at a lonely feather – and he grabbed a pair of pants that I recognized from the corner of my eye as those from yesterday.

"Toss me my own clothes, will you?"

The genius huffed. "Don't act like a prude. You have nothing to hide that I haven't seen." He leered at me. "You have a lot of pretty freckles."

" _Tony!_ "

"Okay, okay, fine."

I received my camo-patterned shorts straight in the face, but I managed to catch my black t-shirt and my bra. I was missing my panties, but gosh, I didn't want Tony to look for them.

When I couldn't spot the missing piece of clothing with a casual look around the room, I resigned myself to the unavoidable evidence:

"Fuck. Commando, it is." I muttered.

Tony looked at me and made a quiet noise of inquiry as he pulled one of his tank tops over his head, but I shook my own head, pulling my own clothes on quickly.

Once I was dressed – uncomfortably – and feeling less self-conscious, I started to make a big pile with the feathers in an attempt to clean up some of my mess.

"Leave it." Tony said. "It'll be cleaned up."

"But… It's my mess. Shouldn't I be the one to pick it up?"

The genius rolled his eyes. "Come on, Lexy, leave it there."

I growled. "Don't call me  _Lexy_ , Anthony."

He winced. "Alright, okay. Come on."

He exited the bedroom and I followed him with a sigh and a troubled look toward the scattered feathers.

*o*O*o*O*o*

Although I had been thinking about a fair number of options as to what had happened, I had not predicted what the Avengers' reaction to my presence would be.

When Tony and I exited the elevator, Steve instantly turned around, but whatever he had been about to say died on his lips, blue eyes widening in surprise, then softening with an expression akin to… relief?

It felt nice to be on the receiving end of that gentle expression.

I let out a noise of confusion, surprise and protest when Clint caught me in a tight hug, pressing his face in my hair.

"What is going on?" I whispered, a hand reaching up to drag through short sandy strands. Not that Clint wasn't affectionate when he wanted to, just…

The archer honestly shivered; a slight tremble that reverberated against my skin. His heart was thrumming strongly against my chest, its rhythm strangely fast, as if under a rush of adrenaline. Had I not known better, I would have hazarded that he had been afraid.

But maybe he had been.

"We thought you were…" Clint's voice was rough, as if he had swallowed glass shards. He leaned back to look at me and his face seemed a little pale.

Okay, so yes, he  _had_  been afraid. For me. That was sweet.

I hummed in comprehension and smiled tentatively at the other Avengers. "I'm alive. I'm not sure how, I have a hangover, but I'm alive."

Instead of answering smiles, all I got were tight expressions and adverted gazes. Even Natasha looked away when I tried to meet her eyes and I felt ice. Ice in my veins, in my heart, in my mind.

Something was wrong.

"Cap?" At least, Tony was apparently just as confused as I was.

"We are glad that you are alive and well, Alexanne." Steve began, meeting my eyes slowly. There was something distant in those blue eyes. "But…"

Clint put his hands on my shoulders,  _gripped_ , and murmured my name just loud enough to be heard by everybody. Steve shut his mouth and swallowed. His posture was rigid, all military and Captain America and hard decisions and  _bad news_ …

_What is going on? What is wrong?_

"Alexanne." Clint repeated my name and his gaze was icy. Cold stone ships staring hard at me.

Fear gripped my heart, nausea came back full force. I wanted to look away, but I couldn't.

"Alexanne." A third time.  _Third time's the one…_  "You… you are alive. But… Vanessa… She… She's dead. I'm sorry."

"What?" It was an innocent word, really. A completely honest and innocent answer to Clint's words.

And then, it  _sunk_  in.

" _What_?" I repeated faintly, the hands that had been pressed against Clint's chest and shoulder falling limply to my sides.

"She… is dead. She just… never woke up."

Clint was trembling, I noted absently.

_Wait, no. I'm the one shaking._

Vanessa.

Dead.

_Oh my God._

Dead. My best friend. My 'sister'.

_No. Oh God, no. No, no, no, no,_ no! _This can't be... She can't... How could she...?_

My face was tucked against warm skin. Skin that smelled like leather and wood. It fast became wet under my cheek.

_She_ can't  _be dead. She can't… Oh God, Vanessa… Ness, Nessie, Nessa… You can't… You can't be_ gone!

Hot air was bouncing against my face. My own pants, puffing against wet salty skin. There was a low buzz in my ears. Words I couldn't –  _wouldn't_  – understand.

_Dead. I'm alive and she's dead. No. That's impossible._

"No." I barely came out. It hurt to get it out.

There were arms around me; a hand in my hair and one pressed against the small of my back. Their grip tightened at the word.

I raised a hand – a shaking hand – and pressed it against my own neck. My pulse was thrumming under my skin, fast, so fast. Blood was rushing in my ears, up to my brain, and my head hurt so much and I was nauseous and I wanted to throw up really badly.

"She's going to be sick." That sounded like Tony, although I couldn't be sure. Maybe I was dreaming. Having a really bad nightmare and I would wake up from an alcohol-induced dream to find my face pressed in my own vomit.

I threw up into the garbage can that had miraculously appeared. I threw up until I had nothing left in my stomach, until I was gagging on the disgusting taste, until I was coughing out sobs and nothing else.

"No! No… You wouldn't lie to me." I choked out, leaning against Clint heavily, rubbing the back of my hand over my mouth, then biting harshly into the soft skin.

I looked up at him. "Please. Please, you can't lie to me!"

A miserable expression had replaced the stony look in the archer's eyes. "I'm sorry, Alexanne."

"Stop saying that!"  _My head, my poor head._ "You can't be sorry for…"  _Vanessa's death. He didn't kill her, my best friend… Oh, Nessie…_  "You can't be sorry for something you didn't do! She can't be dead! She can't! She c-can't b-be g-gone…"

_Burning… Pain, fire, drowning… Drowning in fire… How is that even possible? Vanessa… No. She can't be dead._

"I n-need to s-s-see her… P-please…"

No one argued.

I was tugged and guided to the infirmary. Everything was a blur. Colors, sounds and fragmented pieces of thoughts and that same denial going round and round:

_She can't be dead._

When we came in, there were doctors moving silently around the single occupied bed in the room. White splotches on white walls –

_White feathers scattered everywhere…_

– that left the room when they noticed us.

In the bed, there was Vanessa. The machines around her and fallen silent. She was free of needles and IVs and all that stupid medicine stuff that I had hated to find around me each time I had woken up.

Her eyes were closed. Her golden-brown hair was spread out on the pillow like a halo. She looked as if she was sleeping. But her skin was too white –

_Why is everything so white?_

– and no breath moved her chest. She was like a marble statue. Still, lifeless and…

_Cold._

I jerked back, brought my hand back against my chest as a sob worked its way out of my burning throat.

_So cold. Dead and cold…_

I could hear a shattering sound somewhere in the distance. My vision blurred and burning tears drew patterns down my cheeks, like drips of lava. My knees buckles, but I didn't fall. There was a strange pressure against my back and around my hips and when had I backed against a wall?

_Hot and cold… Burning and drowning… Vanessa, so cold… Dead, oh God, she's dead!_

There was a shrill, high-pitched sound echoing in the room and my ears were hurting and my head was aching and my throat was burning and my stomach was churning and I was choking…

_Choking, drowning, dying… How am I alive? How is she dead? How is this fair? She shouldn't have died! She did nothing wrong! Vanessa… Oh God, Vanessa!_

_It killed her… The portal killed her… And she's dead. Dead and cold and gone because of something she couldn't even control or prepare herself for!_

My throat was on fire and I was vaguely conscious that I was the source of the loud  _wounded_  noises filling the room.

It felt as if I was burning…

It felt as if I was drowning…

_She's dead!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, excuse me while I dig myself a hole where I will hide.
> 
> This part is necessary in the story. I regret having this idea, but the ideas that come after are, hopefully, worth it.


	21. 20: Fire and Ice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is kind of a filler.
> 
> And it's an experiment of mine. It is kind of complex and might require some analysis, but I believe that its evolution is nonetheless comprehensible.
> 
> Now... Do you want to play a small, silly game? Apart from Clint - whose presence is clearly stated - every Avenger (and two of my own characters) make an apparition in this chapter. Do you want to try to guess who is whom?

**Chapter 20: Fire and Ice**

Waking up. Just like emerging from water, gasping for air.

"Where…?" Voice thin, rough. Throat itchy, raw.

_Where am I?_

"Hello Alexanne."

_Clint_.

Blinking blearily, trying to remember.

A beat.

A sharp intake of breath.

"I had a nightmare."

_Vanessa… Dead… Still and cold and white like snow, like marble._

A wince. A silent question adverted by eyes turning away.

A beat.

Another.

"It wasn't a nightmare."

The answer: curt, cold and distant.

_No… No, please!_

Hot burning tears roll down slowly flushing cheeks, but everything is cold.

_Vanessa is dead!_

*o*O*o*O*o*

"The fact that Miss De Bellefeuille was still awake when the Inter-Parallel Teleportation Portal self-destructed saved her life."

Cold, clipped, professional.

The slow burn of anger. A spark of fire, rising from its ashes.

"If you knew… If you actually fucking  _knew_ , why  _the hell_  didn't you wake up Vanessa!? It's your fault! This whole damn mess is  _your_  freaking  _fault_!"

_It hurts. Everything hurts so much!_

A pause.

A boiling volcano on the edge of exploding.

"We didn't know. We had not considered this possibility."

Words turning into ice bullets. The phoenix is shot down, crumples back to ashes.

The dam breaks. The ashes are swept away and everything is cold.

*o*O*o*O*o*

"Don't you want to see her?"

Words softly spoken, uncharacteristic from such a usually brash character. Brash like silver, nickel, iron…

They brush against fragile crystal that is already on the edge of breaking.

No white, only black. The glowing blue of life barely visibly under the layers of black that cover it up like a secret, like a tomb.

No answer comes. The crystal is too fragile, suspended in time. Its sharp edges have dissolved; its protective walls have crumbled to dust.

"She looks as if she's sleeping…"

Words like rocks. Crystal words exploding on a scream coming from the bottom of a bleeding soul.

"She's  _not_  sleeping! She's dead!  _Dead_! I don't want this illusion of life! I want her back!"

_She's never going to wake up…_

Red eyes that have been burning for days are flooded with water.

It burns even more.

*o*O*o*O*o*

The harsh mocking sun turns dark brown to chocolate and auburn. Colors everywhere around, as if paint has been dropped carelessly on a black and white picture.

Black is the only protection against the glare of a far, cold, indifferent smile. But black is tiredly hot, greedily drinking in the heat of the sunshine.

A broken heart hiccups through constant pain. Blood of ice, but everything else suffocates from the unrelenting heat.

_Drowning in fire._

A rattling breath in, a rattling breath out. An attempt at soothing frayed nerves, at keeping a modicum of control.

A hand presses against a tensed back. The next breath is cut in half; held half-in, half-out.

A lost look is thrown over a shoulder clad in suffocating darkness. It meets blue eyes that haunt the only dreams that are not about death and ice.

_Why?_

So many answers. The hand stays, pushes gently. Coaxing.

_Move._

There is a hole in the ground that seems to have overcome the sunlight. It is dark, humid and smells of fresh, overturned earth. It's not that deep –

_Only six feet…_

– but it seems far too deep, the mouth of hell, when the casket – that horrible, costly, rectangular box – is lowered an inch at the time into it.

_She's gone. Truly gone._

_They're taking her away from me!_

"No!"

A desperate jerk toward the pit as the first ball of dirt falls into it.

But the gentle hand morphs into a constricting arm that wraps tight, that stops the movement.

Brought back against a solid chest that smells of sunshine and warmth, another arm joins the first. Twin manacles.

Locked in a hug where there is no comfort to be had.

Heat seeps in everywhere, but it cannot reach the cage of ice around the wounded heart. Cage that locks shut when dirt completely recovers the dark wooden box.

Even once the arms have given back a bitter freedom, the cage remains shut.

*o*O*o*O*o*

_Not hungry._

Everything tastes like ashes.

There is a murmur that fills the room. It sounds foreign.

People are like shadows. They come and go at the edge of a blurred vision, inconsistent shapes of darkness in the dim light.

The corner of the too big room is a safe place, tucked away from those misty presences.

Yet, it is not hidden and one person slips out of the mingle of shadows to head toward the corner.

All clad in darkness but crowned by a halo of fire; like an angel of death.

No words are said.

A gift is offered… and is taken by a hand that cannot stop trembling.

A single black rose. Its stem has been stripped of its defenses. It is smooth, green, the line of life, pure and vibrant, that blooms into the soft, endless night of death.

Something tightens; air becomes difficult to breathe in. The injured rose is brought against a cold cheek, its sweet perfume touching at the injured heart in its icy prison.

Two defenseless beings share their pain and misery under the watchful eye of a fiery angel of death.

*o*O*o*O*o*

" _How about a smile, Little Leaf?"_

It is too much effort.

" _Alexanne, you have to eat something."_

Not hungry, stomach still tied up in knots.

" _Lex, it's been almost two weeks… Please, you need a real night of sleep."_

Sleep doesn't come. Exhaustion forces restless naps that are filled with ice, fire, darkness, and pain.

There is a sigh. Restless fingers are constantly spinning a black pen; spinning it round and round, again and again. The motion is fascinating, easy to follow, somewhat soothing.

"While I can understand your friends' concern, Alexanne, there is nothing psychologically wrong. This is how you grieve and you need to deal with it on your own. They can try to help, but there is not much they can actually do."

Another sigh. One of concern, this time.

"However, I must insist that you take care of yourself. Small, but full meals are still necessary to your health. And you need complete nights of sleep too, since you won't be able to live forever on those hour-long naps you have favored for the last weeks. Do you need sleeping pills?"

_No! No drugs!_

The black pen's spinning motion stops as hands rise peacefully in surrender.

"Alright. Come see me if you need to talk or write to someone, okay?"

A slow nod, a croaked "okay."

The professional mask slips, soften to honest sympathy. "You will heal. You will return to your "usual" state, eventually. But you need to give it time. And you must try not to swallow down your emotions. It will only cause harm in the end."

"Okay." Soft, broken.

The words have barely registered.

But…

_I need time._

*o*O*o*O*o*

The mocking sun that has ruled over a blue sky for days is finally forcefully hidden behind growling clouds. They are black, heavy with tears and anger.

They bring a forceful wind that is both hot and cold and that shows no mercy. It is a slap in the face, something that wakes up a body and a mind that have been handled like fragile porcelain.

They bring loud noises that grate painfully against ears that have been living in murmurs and silence.

It is like an awakening.

Tears lose themselves in the heavy rain that quickly drenches the city. There is no protection from the storm to be found outside. The miles of red cloth that have been thoughtfully offered as a meager protection against the fury of the elements weigh heavily upon trembling shoulders that are already soaked. Trembling from the heat and the cold, from the noise and from the powerful wind.

Blinding white light tears at the dark cloak of the sky, like a revelation. The sound of it echoes around, making the world shake at the edges.

In the middle of it, offering himself without a care to the rage of the elements, stands the master of the storm. An unusual artist with a hammer for brush, keeping a thoughtful eye on his creation.

He turns around. "Was that what you desired?"

His voice is as clear as the answering rumble of thunder.

_Make it disappear! Make the sun disappear, please!_

The answer is barely audible, a hiss of breath carried away by the wind.

"Yes… Thank you."

The rain washes the tears away. It isn't healing, not yet; the wounds are still too raw, are still healing. But it makes the cage of ice melt a little.

There isn't just pain anymore.

There is also something  _freeing_.

*o*O*o*O*o*

Hot green tea with just a hint of honey.

_Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out._

A warm breeze, stirring the curtains. It curls around everything it encounters, just like a very soft blanket.

_Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out._

Soft music. Waterfalls and birds and a harp. With a flute. It is soothing, relaxing.

_Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out._

Tears roll down flushed cheeks. Cleansing tears. They fall freely, silently, like raindrops.

Like melting ice.

A small smile, the first hint of light in far too long, curls at the corners of a mouth that has been tight-lipped and silent in grief for weeks.

A light, high voice, thin from disuse, picks up the flute's melody.

Eyes open. They meet brown irises, warm and calm. Those wrinkle slightly at the corners in a smiling expression. Relief battles with quiet concern for a moment and a shadow of green clouds the brown for a second.

It is gone the next second, however.

There is some gentle coaxing to lie down, a warm hand pressing gently on sagging shoulders.

"You need sleep."

A slow nod. Grabbing for a pillow, then lying down.

The music settles around like a second blanket and thus cocooned in a very quiet and peaceful environment, it is easy to give in the tug of sleep.

It is the first restful sleep in a long time.

There is still pain and darkness and ice, but they are dulled.

There is the whisper of soft, enchanting music.

There is the light touch of a warm breeze.

There is the sweetness of honey.

The heart still aches, but the ice has melted.

The world moves like waves. It breathes calmly.

Everything is warm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's quite a short chapter when compared to the previous ones, but I think the quantity of stuff to analyse and understand makes it quite heavy.
> 
> A lot can be said with a few words.


	22. NOTICE

Hi to those who were reading this story.

This is to inform you that I will be removing this story from both AO3 and FF.net.

I have not written for this story in months and, looking at it now, many things displease me about it. I apologize to those who liked it, but I don't have the motivation or interest to update it anymore and prefer to remove it.

Thank you for reading and for your understanding.

\- StormySkyLeaf


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